PATNA, Feb. 20 -- The Bihar Vidhan Sabha on Thursday passed the education department's budget of Rs.60,204.60-crore, the highest allocation to any department in the 2026-27 budget, by voice vote amid Opposition boycott in the midst of minister's reply over quality of education. Education minister Sunil Kumar said that 20% of the total budget for education was the highest percentage of annual budget allocation in any state, with national average being 14%, and it reflected the government's focus on the sector to transform Bihar. The newly-created higher education department has got another Rs.8,012-crore to take the total budget on education to Rs.68,216-crore. Stressing the large-scale recruitment of teachers in the last three years, which has taken their working strength to 5.87-lakh, the minister listed the various initiatives of the government and said the results had been encouraging in more ways than one, viz. female literacy jumping from 34% in 2001 to 74% and pupil-teacher ratio in school improving from 65:1 in 2005 to 29:1. He said that in the sphere of higher education, the chronic problem of delayed sessions had been tackled with the cooperation of the Chancellor and now only two universities lagged behind by a few months and efforts were underway to streamline them also. "There is plan to bring all the state universities on board Samarth Portal of the Union ministry of education and develop old ones as centres of excellence. A separate higher education department has even been set up. The government has also signed an MoU with NASSCOM to provide industry-aligned training and skilling in AI, data science, and cybersecurity," he added. He also reiterated the government's plan to open model schools and degree colleges in every district and carry out recruitment of around 45,000 teachers through Teachers' Recruitment Exam (TRE-4). Earlier, former education minister Chandrashekhar credited leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prassd Yadav for triggering recruitment, getting TRE-1 &2 conducted, starting "medal lao, naukri pao' for sportspersons and making so up-economic survey possible during the 17-month period when RJD was in power. "I have won the poll against odds due to God's will to take on the hypocrites. Is it not true that Tejashwi had first proposed free electricity, which the government later implemented? Is it not true that the plan to open model schools in every district on the lines of Simultala Awasiya Vidyalay was taken during his term? There was also a move to appoint teacher for Simultala via BPSC, but even the school society's meeting could not he held," he said....