Given the recent amendment of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2014 our expectation was that the budget for child protection which is less than 0.4 percent (of the total budgetary outlay) should have been prioritised to strengthen the JJ system. As this is the first year of the United Nation’s new development framework — the Sustainable Development Goals — a special focus on education, health and protection of children was necessary — Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children Fund

The Union budget with its focus on critical areas of the economy such as education, employability, rural development, agriculture and infrastructure development, is realistic. It will help in the journey to make India a knowledge-based productive economy — Anish Srikrishna, President, Times Centre for Learning Ltd 

The Union budget has taken a 360 degree view of the needs of India’s education sector. The special emphasis on skills development is crucial for employability while the deeper issues of quality and reach are addressed — Shantanu Prakash, Chairman and CEO, Educomp Solutions Ltd

The budget, which has provided Rs.1,800 crore for setting up 1,500 multi-skill institutions and scaling up PMKVY to cover 10 million youth in the next three years, is a step in the right direction — Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT 

We welcome the strong measures to strengthen skills development and entrepreneurship through continuous support to NSDC. The Higher Education Financing Agency is also path-breaking and will help deserving students who want to pursue higher education — Ambarish Datta, CEO, BSE Institute Ltd and Director, NSDC

The focus on education, skills development, jobs creation and entrepreneurship in this budget is very welcome. The initiative to promote excellence in higher education by supporting ten private and ten public higher education institutions to attain world-class status is also a welcome move — Vijay Thadani, Managing Director, NIIT Ltd 

I don’t think education is a money problem. It’s an ideas problem. While this budget like previous ones, has changed allocations, there are no ideas on how to transform education. There are so many good ideas on how we can expand education at all levels without necessarily spending large amounts of public funds, yet the government seems to be content with more of the same — Nitin Pai, Director, Takshashila Institution

The emphasis given to skills development is overdue and welcome. The provision of Rs.1,800 crore for establishing 1,500 new skill development centres is realistic — Nikhil Rajpal, Partner and Head of Education, Ernst & Young (India)