Budget 2025: High-end capabilities for education sector; National Centres of Excellence to be set up for skilling with global expertise

The 2025-26 Union Budget’s education-related announcements largely pertained to high-end capabilities. In addition to Centres of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in agriculture, health, and sustainable cities, this Budget has proposed to set up an AI Centre of Excellence on Education, allocating ₹500 crore to it.

A Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Scheme will provide Indian language books in digital form to school and higher education. Five third-generation Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) set up after 2014, including IIT Goa and IIT Dharwad, will be supported to take in 6,500 more students. IIT Patna will have expanded hostels and other infrastructure capacity. The Budget speech noted that the total number of students in 23 IITs has more than doubled — from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh students in the past 10 years.

This year, 10,000 more seats in medical colleges and hospitals will be added as part of an initiative to add 75,000 seats in the next 10 years.

Also read | Union Budget 2025: Spending on IITs, IIMs and higher education in general stagnates | Data 

Outlay increases have been seen in higher education, Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), Central Universities, centrally sponsored schemes, and students financial aid. Higher education received about 7.7% more this year compared to last year. IKS have been allocated ₹50 crore. “This move will significantly boost UGC’s (University Grants Commission) efforts to prepare 22,000 textbooks for UG (undergraduate) and PG (postgraduate) studies in 22 Indian languages,” UGC Chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar said. The Budget proposes a national digital repository for IKS

The PM Research Fellowship scheme will provide 10,000 scholarships over the next five years for technological research in the IITs and in the Indian Institute of Science.

In a key new initiative, 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs will be set up in government schools “to cultivate the spirit of curiosity and innovation, and foster a scientific temper among young minds”. This will come over and above providing broadband connectivity to all government secondary schools and Primary Health Centres in rural areas.

On skilling, the Budget talks about setting up five National Centres of Excellence for skilling with global expertise, and partnerships to equip our youth with the skills required for ‘Make for India, Make for the World’ manufacturing. The partnerships will cover curriculum design, training of trainers, a skills certification framework, and periodic reviews.