Summary:
Despite much talk about focus on the social sector, over the years, there has been only a nominal increase in allocation towards education in the state budget. In fact, Gujarat ranks 14th among the 18 big states of India as far as percentage share of education in the overall state budget is concerned. Share of education in the overall state budget for 2017-18 was just 12.8%, much less that states such as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. This is lower than the earlier 14.24% allocated to education in the state's budget for 2014-15. The analysis also revealed that 86.79% of the total budget for elementary education was spent on salaries while a mere 0.20% of the total budget was spent on training teachers..