The penultimate year's budget presented by the United Progressive Alliance Government before the 2009 general elections come knocking, has tried to give an even layer of butter to the national bread, including the social sector; health and education included. But, the latter seems to have missed out considering what late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had said; out of every rupee that goes to rural India, only 17 paise manages to reach there. So how much actually it contributes, is not difficult to imagine. According to media observations made after Mr. Chidambaram presented the 2008-09 budget. It was found education ministry has been allocated Rs. 38,702,87 crores, which includes the Rs. 13,000 crores collected as education cess. In reality then, the allocation is just Rs. 25,700 crores. This year's economic survey, tabled in Parliaments day before the Budget had given due stress to education. Though the budget allocation is not too much to write home about, the prime status for education-higher and technical in the 11th plan has been made clear in the Economic Survey. It has talked of bringing an enactment of a legislation to implement a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to education for the second year in a row, but the mood this time is more business-like with the Prime Minister announcing that a bill would brought in during the budget session. The Economic Survey devoted equal attention to primary, secondary and higher education by highlighting initiatives in each of these sectors that would expand in the course of the 11th Plan. However, the Survey did not mention or discuss the fact that there is now and in the future would be a more acute manpower crisis in the field of higher education. Undoubtedly, expansion of higher education without making teaching jobs attractive and long-lasting, could lead to a big crisis. The Survey has not this time echoed the Prime Minister's commitment about the subject. It has said even if the right to education does not happen, the government is committed to good quality elementary education to all children in the age group of 6 years to 14 years. It cannot be denied that the State efforts to make a success of the education for all (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan), Midday Meal Scheme and Kasturba Gandhi Scheme for girls education met with reasonable success. The Survey had not without reason talked of the achievements of SSA-more than 1.70 lakh schools buildings constructed, 7.13 classrooms added, 1.75 drinking water facilities added, 2.18 toilet facilities provided, and last but not the least 6.64 crore text books provided. The other roaring success is providing free mid-day meals to 9.7 crore children. The 11th Plan is expected to see the extension of the midday meal scheme for another 1.7 crore children-students of Classes VI to VIII. Over and above this, as stated earlier is going to be the stress on higher education, in the next fiscal: it includes eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, seven new Indian Institutes of Management, 10 national information technology institutes, three new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, 20 institutes of information technology and two new schools of planning and architecture. And then there are plans for 14 world class universities, 16 central universities and 30 new degree colleges. But, it is only practical to caution that these institutions are only on the drawing board and nowhere near reality of now. According to reports emanating from HRD ministry, the three new IITs slated to come up in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh will teach not only engineering but also social sciences, humanities, health sciences, management and design and creative arts. The HRD ministry is desirous that the three new IITs should start functioning by the beginning of this academic year, if necessary from rented premises, but no decision on it has yet been taken. There is no unanimity on opening as yet. In the expenditure Finance Committee meeting, the Planning Commission representative had indicated that to make these IITs world class, enough time should be given to develop the requisite infrastructure, but IIT Kanpur senior faculty member thought a beginning should be made soon, as had been the case when the earlier IITs came up, to start work in rented premises. As the good work of improving facilities and development of higher and technical education goes on albeit haltingly, it will be interesting to examine the suggestions made by Planning Commission's working group of higher education for the 11th Plan. It has proposed the objective of raising the Gross Enrolment Ration from 10.5 in 2006-07 to 15.5 in 20II-12. Mr. R Srinivasan of Tamil Nadu state Planning Commission has recently stated that there are differences in figures of National Statistical Organisation and Government of India, but that depend's on inclusion or exclusion of candidates of diploma and correspondence courses. It has been felt that in an unequal society, students from the marginalized sections should be given preferential treatment in terms of reservation in higher education, besides adequate financial assistance. We should resolve the issue of reservation in higher educational institutions at the earliest and institute an irreversible reservation system. All new universities and educational institutions should be located in educationally backward areas, one fourth of such institutions exclusively for women to reduce the gender gap in higher education. The working group has pointed out that there are extreme disparities in the quality of education, which go against the principles of equity and social justice. There is extreme variability in the quality of higher education among the various institutions and the average quality of the sector as a whole is low. 2008-09 being the last and final year of the congress led UPA government at the Centre, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has not lost the chance to make everyone happy, but what will be education's fate? Shibani Dasgupta, NPA