KATHMANDU: The government has increased the budget for education sectors by over Rs 7 million — to Rs 46.66 billion in this fiscal from the last year’s Rs 38.98 billion. The priority areas in the education sector include eradication of illiteracy in the coming two years, qualitative, skill oriented and vocation training, primary education in mother tongue and free education up to grade X, among others. Many educationists say that this year’s budget has nothing new except for the continuation of the programmes initiated by previous government last year. “More budget has been allocated for the continuity of programs initiated in the past while there is no new programme in education sector,” Prof Dr Bidhya Nath Koirala told this daily today. He said, “The government should have focused on open university to give education to poor students from remote areas as well as the children of farmers. Moreover, it would have been better had the budget been allocated for establishing digital university rather than giving emphasis on various technical universities.” He wondered as to how the government would be successful in providing free education as the budget for the purpose was too meagre. Prof Dr Tirtha Khaniya said that continuity of previous programmes was an obligation for the government as the current year was the final year of three-year interim plan. “We have been demanding for at least 20 per cent of total budget for education sector which is yet to be listened by the governments,” he added. Similarly Prof Mana Prasad Wagle, an educationist, said that eradication of illiteracy within two years was a matter of being “more optimistic.” They lamented as the government had no special programmes to contain dropout rate.