Report of the Committee on National Common Minimum Programme's Commitment of Six Per Cent of GDP to Education

Abstract

How much should India invest in education as a proportion of her national income? The Common Minimum Programme of the UPA Government “pledges to raise public spending in education to at least 6% of the GDP” and that "This will be done in a phased manner." Though it is not a new promise, it is an important reiteration of the new government To reach this goal, a detailed plan is necessary on the needed annual Increases in allocation of resources. Since it is well known that our education system is severely starved of funds, and that it does require huge sums, even much above six per cent of the gross domestic product, for quantitative expansion, for improvement in quality, for improvement in equity, for strengthening diversity and other vital aspects of educational development there is no need to make any estimate of resource requirements a t this stage. Quite a few detailed estimates are already available on this issue by different levels of education, as described later.