Last year saw monumental changes in the Indian polity and there are now many expectations from the Narendra Modi government. People will expect positive sentiment to translate to action and impact on the ground, and that we believe will be a real test. For obvious reasons, the education sector has been a priority area for successive years; however, it is in need of policy reforms, increased outlays, stringent implementation of existing schemes and, most importantly, measurement of the efficacy of the work undertaken.

While last year&’s Union Budget was promising in parts for the education sector, in many ways it was not hugely dissimilar to earlier budgets, with no significant increases in outlays. However, it did strike the right chords, with priority accorded to skill development, teacher training (launch of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching) and digitisation and innovation in schools. Of course, each of these is a critical block in improving learning outcomes in Indian classrooms and contributing to the development of the student.

Some of the other announcements through 2014 too seemed like steps in the right direction, such as plans to increase the Indian Institutes of Technologies and Indian Institutes of Management, review of the role of key regulators such as the University Grants Commission and All India Council For Technical Education and the introduction of a credit transfer system in Indian universities. The underlying philosophy behind each of these initiatives seemed to be that quality education should be made accessible and affordable for learners of all ages. To make this happen, the Modi government will need to ensure quality standards of content and delivery are improved. So 2015 will entail a looking forward to a continued impetus on education and sector-specific reforms. Some of the measures that will be welcomed include:

■ Laws to protect original and authentic content in the larger interest of students and the education fraternity: copyright infringement, piracy and plagiarism of content should be dealt with seriously so that authors and publishers are incentivised to produce high quality, original work for learners.

■ Digitisation in schools: the last few years have been marked by increased digitisation of education, mainly in elite, private schools. Across the world governments have supported digitisation of education, which has led to better learning outcomes. There should be allocation for digitisation in both government and government-aided schools, as also in private institutions. Private publishers can then be encouraged to provide interactive digital content to such schools.

■ Clarity in tax regime for e-books: the current tax structure for publishers is unclear. It is a long-pending demand of publishers to bring about a simplified tax structure around both print and electronic content (e-books). Presently, in some cases service tax is levied on e-books, a holding tax on foreign published journals and no tax is levied on books printed in India. With increased usage of e-books, taxation of e-books and other forms electronic content should be reviewed earnestly.

Learning either in print or through the electronic medium should not be differentiated.

■ Duty on paper: a longstanding issue has been duty on paper, which results in publishers increasing the price of books on a frequent basis, leading to cost burden on parents of school going children.

A reduction in Vat/Custom duty on paper will certainly be welcome.

The writer is Managing Director, Oxford University Press, India.