Public Spending for Health and Education Should Go Up

There is a lot of encouragement for privatization, especially in the health care sector. However, a recent survey done shows different results. It indicates that more public spending needs to happen in social sectors with education and health being the two main areas. These two areas are vital for an economy to develop. India has had a target for increasing the spending in both health and education. However the target has remained just a target.

 

The expenditure has stayed the same or even reduced in some cases. Though more and more children are getting admitted to school as a result of initiatives undertaken by the government, the learning outcomes have not correspondingly increased. Teachers’ salaries, scholarships for students, and other benefits need to be made through direct transfer so that all the funds reach the right places that they are intended for and act as motivation and engage people in the right way.

 

Rate of School Dropouts

The cost of education has gone up and it is one of the main factors that students are not completing their education. Students drop out of school to either start earning or due to lack of money for fees. The government needs to step in and maintain the quality of education and teach students skills that will increase their employment value so that the government gets a return on the investment made on these students.

 

Skills

Training outcomes are not being measured properly, as they measure only the number of people trained. They do not take into account factors like the level of training, duration of training, person days and hours and so on.

 

In the area of health, India has improved on certain areas like infant mortality rates, maternal mortality, and life expectancy, but it is still far behind other similar economically developing countries.

 

Need to Catch up to other Nations

India’s private out-of-pocket expenditure is more than any other country and it needs to catch up in the area of health as well. The high expenditure has a negative impact on the poorer sections of society and increase the gap between the different segments of society. The quality of public health services needs to improve so that people with lower incomes do not get affected by health issues, which will in turn affect a large section of the population of the country. Click here for more detail's

 

It is also recommended to promote generic drugs and not patented ones, as they are more expensive and a lot of people will be unable to afford them.

 

In order for India to progress at a healthy rate, both education and health need to go a long way to improve, so that it is on par with other nations at a similar level.