Bhubaneswar, Feb 1: While academicians, educationists & critics align with the provision for education in the Union Budget 2026-27, Vice-Chancellor, Odisha State Open University (OSOU) Prof. Shyam Sundar Pattnaik, said the allocation is very progressive & stupendous in bringing the national education onto a higher track.

Lauding the PM & FM’s vision in prioritizing education, Prof. Pattnaik said meticulous outlay of the budgetary provision will be catalytic in synchronizing learning with employment & entrepreneurship in the coming days.

Analysing the educational perspective of the people-centric budget the VC said, as compared to year-year of 1 to 3 % growth of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, 8.27% surplus to the education sector, is a strong signal of intention and priority. ⁠The move is indeed an accelerated push for educational development.

Citing the budget alienated for the HEIs, the VC said, an allocation of Rs 55724.54cr for higher education, that’s nearly 40% of the budget is a good sign to push education to employment/Entrepreneurship which evident from government push on cluster learning and work ecosystem.

Similarly, ⁠University township is a phenomenal move in this direction that will help integrate industrial growth with vocational and skill-based education. The intention is very clear that it is not only opening new institutions but a strong focus on strong coordination across education, industry and labour, said Prof. Pattnaik.

⁠Underlining the scope of girls’ education and women empowerment the VC said, “In a state like ours, we have defined women led development is one of our verticals of Viksit Odisha. Thus, hostels in each district for the girls to pursue STEM will add impetus to this vertical. It will reduce transit time helping these students to devote more time on practice-based education.”

Elaborating the collaborative approach of the OSOU in contributing to the value-based & work-oriented education, Prof. Pattnaik said, “⁠In the OSOU under PMUSHA, we are constructing a building called RISHI (Residential Internship and Skill Hands for Industry) which will house smart labs, trainers accommodations, hostels in same building allowing students to use effectively the infrastructure without any restriction on time of use. Hence, I feel the budget is a strong support to our concept of acquiring effective skill to become industry ready.”

Underlining the DD University as a Lab of innovation and technical studies, the VC said, “There we have got a new complex nomenclatured as ‘School of Emerging Education, Skill and Entrepreneureship’ where we have planned the floors as AI floor, Cyber Security Floor, AR, VR and Digital Twin Floor, Animation, Design and Gamming Floor to impart centralised skill education and training not only to our students but also to students of our state and beyond. The girls hostel is alongside the building which is going to be inaugurated by CM shortly. So as the VC of two leading Varsities, I appreciate the Center’s budget that is almost supportive of this type of innovative thought process as metaverse world economy will be driven by emerging educational skills.”

Highlighting the new-era educational skills, the VC said, ⁠Design engineering and design education is a need of the hours. The progressive budget is going to help in bridging the gap, to groom right professionals in the right way from the righteous educational institutions.

Citing the budget affirming medical education, the VC added, ⁠Pharmacy Education and Pharma Economy is a strength of this country and the budget has created a provision to strengthen the healthcare ecosystem.

⁠Tourism & Hospitality is not simply an education but an ecosystem of employment and entrepreneurship. Similarly, Astronomy Education is very much part of the Indian Knowledge System (IKS). It is yet be explored to its fullest potential. The dynamic move in this budget for the tourism and Astro Science sectors is too economic & productive, the VC added.

Advanced studies in Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics(⁠AVGC) are now big employment and entrepreneurship areas. The OSOU team is meticulously working on it creating digital comics derived from Odia & Sanskrit literatures, legends and scriptures. It’s going to get a major boost with the emerging education, powered by the viable budget, the educationist affirmed.

“We are using the soft component of PMUSHA fund to develop 100 plus skill courses rather than spending them I conducting seminars etc. These soft skill courses will cover tourism, agriculture, logistic, AI, Cybersecurity, Distaster Management, AVGC, Drone, Green Energy, personal healthcare and wellness, financial tools and many more mainly focusing on non-engineers so that with their degrees in non-engineering stream the students are well fit in the emerging ecosystem. The budget presented today equally lays emphasis on the aspects, Prof. Pattnaik added.

“As an academic administrator I see this budget is very visionary to cope with the global trends that will give opportunity to all to accelerate their push of educational economy. ⁠Needless to say that the budget opens up avenues for education system to accelerate their initiatives in the areas like semiconductor, AI, Data Science , Medical Tourism etc.”, Prof. Pattnaik opined.

“If we focus on what the budget intentions are, and keep a tight time line with strong coordination with industry and like-minded partners then the Viksit Bharat agendas can very well be supported. A strong monitoring system on implementation is imperative to translate the dreams to reality”, the educationist resolved.