Budget 2023: Higher allocation on research, longer tax exemptions, demands edtech sector

NEW DELHI: Private education technology leaders and entrepreneurs expect government support for EdTech initiatives, more spending on higher education, allocation on research, help for startups to become part of AICTE, UGC, tax exemptions and protection laws for e-learning companies. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2023 on February 1.

Vamsi Krishna, CEO and Co-founder, Vedantu said, “One thing that we expect from this year’s Union Budget is more government resources and support for EdTech initiatives. Investment in education technology is imperative for the development of our learning ecosystem. Apart from the budget, we also expect the government to frame a policy structure that could encourage schools to expand their online learning efforts by enabling them with more education technology. To nurture new ideas and technologies, there is a longing need to bring reforms in the online learning space which will truly be the catalyst in terms of further innovation and growth of the sector.”

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Gaurav Bhatia, CEO of RISE, "India currently has a low GER i.e., Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education, where only about 27.1% of all eligible candidates can make it to a higher education university. With a national ambition to ensure this number goes up to 50% by 2035, there needs to be higher spending on higher education. In today’s world, an important aspect to understand is that traditional brick-and-mortar institutions can not cater to this high burgeoning demand. Higher education in the hindsight only gets 40% of the allocated budget every year as the majority of it goes to school education.

Higher spending on research, funding

“The second area where I believe the budget allocations should increase is research as from over 237 crores in 2021, it went down to 218 crores in 2022-23. In order for our universities to be ranked globally, we need to have higher spending on higher education and improve such outcomes and innovation in the universities. Hence, instead of diminishing our budget allocations, India needs to increase them in order to start seeing better outcomes as a country in the quality of education and in the quality of students who graduate from our universities,” Bhatia added.

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Bhavesh Goswami, Founder & CEO, CloudThat said, “Undoubtedly, Government initiatives are laudable as it has taken major strides in building a strong e-learning ecosystem. Additionally, I think in the upcoming Union Budget Government should encourage universities and other educational institutes to integrate new-age skills in their curriculum and also help meritorious E-Learning startups to be a part of educational governing bodies like AICTE and UGC.

“Moreover ED-Tech startups who are forerunners in disseminating skills along with conceptual knowledge need financial support from the government budget in the form of longer duration tax exemptions and funding support to thrive in the market. Finally, the Government should announce programs to foster better Internet connectivity infrastructure across the nation that ensures last-mile connectivity, access to affordable 5G devices and importantly help E-learning players with robust data protection laws,” he added.