How Can Taxpayer Money Improve The Future Of The Indian Education System?

A lot of people possess the misconception that a small portion of our demography that is capable of filing the income tax are the only taxpayers. Well, that’s not true as almost every person in this nation pays tax.

Whenever you buy any good, use any service, sell/manufacture any good or provide a service you pay tax. In recent years the taxation system of India has changed significantly as various advantages of gst has removed the cascading effect of the taxation method used before.

Irrespective of your income status, and regardless of whether you pay income taxes, you are a taxpayer. Being a taxpayer, you have the right to know where taxpayers’ money goes and if it’s going to the essential sectors that build and develop our society.

GST And The Education System

You don’t need to be told why development in education is necessary and why it should be treated as a matter of prime importance. Without a stellar education system, India will struggle to achieve excellence in other sectors. Thus, it will always be dependent on other nations for new technology and medicine.

Here are a few ideas regarding how taxpayer money can be used in providing quality education, and thereby uplift the overall standard of the education system in future.

Free School Education

A sizeable portion of children and teenagers drop out of school simply because of their families’ poor economic condition. By enabling free education up to higher secondary, kids from marginalised families can attain basic knowledge and develop reasoning skills which will come handy in every aspect of life.

The tax collected by the government should be used not only in covering school fees but providing free books and school uniforms. If needed, government schools should also have free hostel accommodation for students who live at inconvenient distances from their school.

Emphasising On Skill Development

One of the main reasons for unemployment among the educated class of our society is because the education system does little to develop skills that attract employers. Sure, schools teach children but somehow lag in making them employable.

To solve this problem, the government should invest more in schools so that they can provide students with vocational training that increases their skill and readies them to get hired.

Subsidising Higher Education

With less than 3% of the whole population under the direct tax bracket, higher education seems to be a far-fetched dream for a lot of people. The demographic survey also represents 85% of the population are matter-of-factly poor. Here, the state needs to take the responsibility of providing higher education to the students belonging to underprivileged families.

Besides, using the taxpayers’ money to subsidise higher education to students will pay off in the long-run as it will increase the chance of these students’ getting good jobs and coming under direct tax payee category.

Promotion Of Distance-Basis College Education

A lot of students get themselves jobs to support their families after completing high school. There are also people (especially women), who want to pursue higher education, but some of their responsibilities set them back from attending a regular course in a college.

For such people, correspondence programs should be made available. Providing students with study materials and letting them appear in exams isn’t enough. Under authorised universities, institutions can be set up that would provide students weekly/biweekly classroom coaching as per the enrolled students’ schedules and convenience.

Bottom Line

Ours is a nation where disparity of wealth and income is prevalent. Almost 50% of the population according to the income-wise distribution earns less than Rs. 60 per day per head. Standing at such a point, no one can unsee the urgent need of money influx in our education system, as not every family can pay for their children’s education.

So as long as these kids remain deprived of education, the disparity remains unsettled in every sector. Taxpayers’ money is not only for safeguarding security-standards but also for public-funded education and health.

Despite having a complicated gst tax rate, the tax base has expanded considerably in the recent years and so has the amount of collected revenue – so it is only fair that the taxpayers’ money comes into the society through allocation in core sectors like education.