The True Picture of India’s Educational Transformation

• India’s education system was a time capsule, with the last major policy update in 1986 and minor amendments in 1992.
 • The education system was plagued by corruption and governance deficit, with public universities starving of funds and private institutions becoming degree mills.
 • Political interference in education was rampant, with the University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education becoming instruments of control rather than enablers of excellence.

 The National Education Policy of 2020
 • The policy aims to correct structural inequities inherited from centralized, rigid, and elitist frameworks.
 • The NEP 2020 focuses on empowerment and change, with the enrolment of Scheduled Castes (SC) in higher education increasing by 50%, Scheduled Tribes (ST) by 75%, and Other Backward Classes by 54% since 2014-15.
 • Women’s empowerment is at the heart of these reforms, with female enrolment growing by 38.8%, crossing 2.18 crore in 2022-23.
 • The government is prioritising early childhood education and foundational learning and numbereracy for a child’s overall development, cognitive growth, and future learning.

 Futuristic Elements and Innovation
 • The NEP 2020 has introduced futuristic elements such as coding from middle school, multidisciplinary approaches to problem-solving, and innovation hubs in rural areas.
 • Over 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) are nurturing grassroot-level innovation.
 • Sustainable revenue models have freed universities from resource dependency, with 11 universities in the QS World Rankings top 500.

 Language Primacy
 • The NEP has restored primacy to all Indian languages and knowledge traditions, overcoming the decades of ‘English-first’ policies.
 • The government’s commitment to social justice was reflected in the enactment of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019, for reservation of teaching positions in central educational institutions for SCs, STs, and others.