Chandigarh, April 9 -- The Union ministry of education has approved a budget of Rs.1,275 crore for school education in Punjab for 2024-25 under the Samagra Shiksha scheme while flagging the teacher vacancies, adverse pupil-teacher ratio and infrastructure gaps in government schools in the state.

The budget, which is marginally lower than the outlay of Rs.1,298 crore for 2023-24, has been sanctioned to meet the expenditure on the new and ongoing programmes for improvement in the quality of education, upgrade of school infrastructure, pre-primary education, training of teachers, and vocational education. The state government had submitted an annual work plan and budget of Rs.1,498 crore for the financial year 2024-25.

As the flagship cent...