School Education Budget 2026: Atal Tinkering Labs gain big; small hikes for Samagra Shiksha, mid-day meals

Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL), the do-it-yourself spaces in schools providing hands-on learning opportunities in STEM, got a major boost in the Union Budget 2026-27, while the support for the World Bank-assisted Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States or ‘STARS’ programme, aimed at improving learning outcomes and governance of schools in select states, has dwindled.

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The overall allocation for school education in the annual budget has increased by around 6.35%, even as its share in the overall expenditure has practically remained unchanged. However, there has been a significant reduction – more than 10% – in both the revised estimates for the current fiscal year, 2025-26, as well as the actual spending on schools in the year before, 2024-25, compared to their respective budgeted amounts.

The 2026-27 estimates were presented by the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the parliament on Sunday.

The budget documents show that the school education and literacy department under the union education ministry has been allocated Rs 83,562 crore, up from Rs 78,572 crore earmarked for 2025-26. The revised estimate (RE) for 2025-26 is pegged much lower at Rs 70,567 crore, while the actual spending for 2024-25 is reported lower still – Rs 65,159 crore – even though the budget estimate for the year was Rs 73,008 crore. The cuts are spread across the budget heads in varied measures.

School education accounts for around 1.56% of the centre’s entire planned expenditure, marginally higher than the current year’s 1.55%.

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School Budget 2026: Samagra Shiksha, mid-day meal

The Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN), the department’s two major programmes, have both seen proportionally smaller – only around 2% – hike in their outlay, while the 2025-26 RE figures reveal almost 8% and 15% drop, respectively.

The modest growth for SSA, which is the centre’s overarching programme to fund state government-run and aided schools around the country, comes at a time when the ministry has begun overhauling the scheme by linking the grants to predefined ‘outcomes’. The centre is also urging the states to seek the support of the private sector to improve their schools.

PM POSHAN pays for the mid-day meals in schools.

On the other hand, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), which run the central KV and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) schools, got more generous hikes of 6.58% and 13.57%, respectively. While there was no revision in the former’s allocation in the current financial year, the latter will get to spend around 8.39% more than the previously earmarked amount.

The national textbook publisher, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), too, received around 15% and 5% more in 2026-27 (Budget Estimate; BE) and 2025-26 RE.

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Education Budget 2026: 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs

The biggest gainer, however, is the Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) scheme, which was introduced as a new head in the department’s budget. The centre has proposed to spend Rs 3,200 crore on the scheme in the next fiscal and Rs 500 crore in the current one. The government had in December announced to set up 50,000 new ATLs in government schools around the country over the next five years, a plan reiterated by the finance minister in her speech on Sunday.

ATLs, a part of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), are aimed at fostering creativity and curiosity among schoolgoers. At the around 10,000 such facilities opened up so far, the students are provided with kits and equipment related to science, electronics, robotics, open-source microcontroller boards, sensors and 3D printers and computers.

Nirmala Sitharaman also announced plans for constructing ‘Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) Content Creator Labs’ in 15,000 secondary schools and colleges with the support of Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT). She estimates that the AVGC industry – the ‘orange economy’ – will require 20 lakh professionals by 2030.

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STARS, which saw a 60% cut in both the current and the next fiscal, is among the few programmes whose budget was either slashed or remained static. The reform and result driven scheme, for which the centre received loan from the World Bank, completed its five-year duration in the academic year 2024-25.

No revision was made in the Rs 7,500-crore outlay for the centre's flagship Prime Minister School for Rising India (PM SHRI) programme. However, for the current year, the scheme’s expenditure has been reduced to Rs 4,000 crore.

School Budget 2026: SSA, mid-day meal, NCERT outlay (in Rs Cr)

The government is also looking to embed artificial intelligence in the school curricula and upgrade the State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs) for teacher training. These initiatives have been tasked to a high-powered ‘Education to Employment and Enterprise’ standing committee to recommend measures that focus on the Services Sector “as a core driver of Viksit Bharat”.