Plugging loopholes of an argument

The Op-Ed page of ‘The Hindu’ carried out an article of the IT minister, Kapil Sibal, which intended in giving a reply to the recent remark of Narendra Modi on the inadequate spending of UPA government in the education sector. In this, the minister defends UPA with the comparison of public expenditures on education during NDA and his government.

Recently, in a gathering at a Pune University, Narendra Modi passed a remark on the UPA government’s expenditure of mere 4% of GDP compared to China’s 20% of GDP on this sector. The conjecture of data from Government World Reports (2013) proclaims the Chinese government expenditure was $1.25 trillion in the previous five years. This clears the air; china has spent only 4% of GDP on education. This extrapolation of data forms a basis of the minister’s argument.

He accuses the NDA government’s expenditure of 2.4% of GDP whereas the UPA government spent staggering 4.2% of country’s GDP. Apparently, the figures show a hike in spending during the UPA regime. But to be noted is the country recorded its unprecedented GDP growth of 8.5% in the last decade only. The onset of real economic boom brought by IT was set after 2004 in the country, which means under the UPA government.

Ironically, the public expenditure on education reveals a different set of data. The government recorded its highest spending in the year 1999 with 12.72% and its least in the year 2009 with 9.98% of total government expenditure, according to official figures.

Thus, these figures support no successive government had valued the importance of education. Apart from RTE, the UPA government hasn’t roll out its sleeves in the sector. What believed to be a game changer, mid-day meals, is fraught with corruption and inefficiency driving students away from the school. Besides, the country concentrated very little on the pre-primary schools where the drop out ratio from schools scales higher as no legislation take cares of it.

The education sector is disfigured beyond recognition and being hopeless to millions of young minds. The persistent neglect of government, uncontrolled power exercise of private parties not bode well with the future of the country.

Apparently, the minister started his article with a quote, "Great leaders, it is said, are dealers in hope". This saying makes us to admit that our country, unfortunately, never stumbled across a great leader, so far.