The Recent Trends of Public Expenditure on Education in Karnataka

The very recent and emerging trends of the primary education system in Karnataka show that the enrollments of government schools have come down, Even though the Government expenditure on various schemes to promote Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE), has been increasing in every consecutive year, these schemes are not fulfilling the Government’s aim to improve enrollment and retention rate. On the other hand, private schools have become synonymous with a quality education that is leading to an increase in the number and the enrollments of private schools and is causing the shutdown of government schools. To deal with the problems of providing quality education and keeping the increasing number of private schools in view, the government has involved private sector by passing the bill of Right to Education Act (2009), which in turn has added one more financial responsibility to shoulder for the government in the form of reimbursement to private schools. Reimbursement is a financial burden on government and, at the same time, is not enough to meet the per-child expenditure of (some) private schools. In this changing scenario, the government pattern of spending on elementary education has also changed. Thus, analyzing the pattern and composition of expenditure is crucial to make any government policy feasible, needbased, and result-oriented.