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Education Budget 2026 Signals Shift Towards Skills and Employability

Reekrit Serai

“This year’s Education Budget marks a thoughtful shift from access to alignment — aligning education more closely with skills, employability, and inclusion. With ₹1.39 lakh crore, initiatives such as girls’ hostels in every district, AVGC creator labs in 15,000 schools, and university townships linked to industry reflect a forward-looking, future-ready approach.

At the same time, India’s overall public spending on education continues to be around 4% of GDP, and the broader aspiration of the National Education Policy 2020 to move towards 6% remains a work in progress. Many in the sector will also look forward to stronger emphasis on upgrading existing school infrastructure, teacher capacity building, research ecosystems, and a clearer framework for public–private partnerships to help scale quality faster across the system.

The direction is encouraging — and with sustained execution and collaborative participation between government and private institutions, these measures can significantly strengthen the education landscape across the country.”

Reekrit Serai, MD, Satluj Group of Schools (Haryana, Punjab, J&K, HP)