India’s New Education Policy 2020: Highlights and opportunities

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24/08/2020

Higher Education Institutions, Further Education Institutions, Schools & Independent Colleges, ELT Providers, Agents/Advisors & School Counsellors

Executive Summary

India’s first Education Policy was passed and implemented in 1986. After thirty-four years, the National Education Policy (NEP) for India has been updated, revised and approved on 29 July 2020. The policy signifies a huge milestone for India’s Education system, which will certainly make India an attractive destination for higher education world-wide.

The policy is based on the pillars of “Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability, Accountability” and will transform India into a vibrant knowledge hub

NEP 2020 emphasises systemic and institutional improvements to regulation, governance and promotion of multidisciplinary academics and research in Indian HEIs.

Several aspects of the plan may create new opportunities for UK HEIs. For example, changes to the basic education system will make Indian school leavers more prepared to directly enter a UK undergraduate programme; a new nationwide academic credit system will simplify credit recognition partnerships between UK and Indian universities; and legislation will soon be submitted to allow leading overseas universities (institutions ranked in the top 100 worldwide) to open branch campuses in India. At the same time there may be consultancy opportunities related to the quality focus of the new education policy.

Challenges in the current Higher Education System:

Fragmented higher education ecosystem
Poor learning outcomes and development of cognitive skills of students
Rigid, inflexible separation of disciplines for eg: An arts stream student cannot study any science related subject at HE.
Lack of quality higher education in socioeconomically challenged areas
Low teacher and institutional autonomy to innovate and excel
Inadequate career management and progression for faculty/institutional leaders
Lack of research funding across disciplines
Sub-optimal governance and leadership of HEIs
Poor regulatory mechanism that inhibits growth of excellent and innovative HEIs
Large number of affiliations to universities resulting in poor undergraduate performance

Key highlights of the New National Education Policy

The NEP brings about a range of changes in the system of higher education aiming to improve it with the goal of “creation of greater opportunities for individual employment.
The key highlights from the new policy aim at:
1. Creating an HE system consisting large, multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with at least one in or near every district, and more HEIs across India which offer their programmes in local/Indian languages
2. Shifting from a rigid HE curriculum to multidisciplinary undergraduate education]
3. Offering faculty and institutional autonomy
4. Revamping the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and student support for enhanced student experiences
5. Reaffirming the integrity of faculty and institutional leadership positions through merit- appointments and career progression based on teaching, research, and service
6. Establishing National Research Foundation to fund brightest, peer-reviewed research and to actively seed research in universities and colleges
7. Improved Governance of HEIs by high qualified independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy
8. “light but tight” regulation by a single regulator for higher education;
9. Giving increased access, equity, and inclusion through a range of measures such as offering scholarships by private/philanthropic universities for disadvantaged and underprivileged students
10. Giving access to education to all learners (disadvantage/ learners with special needs) through online education, and Open Distance Learning (ODL).
A goal of the NEP is to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education, including vocational education to 50part percent by 2035 from 26.3 percent as of 2018.

NEP will replace the fragmented nature of India’s existing higher education system and instead bring together higher education institutions (HEIs) into large multidisciplinary universities, colleges, and HEI clusters/knowledge hubs. The policy states that over time, single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time.
For now, while the NEP states that a system of granting graded autonomy based on accreditation will be adopted for colleges, eventually, the aim is to transform them into an autonomous degree-granting college, or a constituent college of a university.

New and existing HEIs will evolve into three distinct categories:
1. Research Universities (RUs)
2. Teaching Universities (TUs)
3. Autonomous Degree Granting Colleges (ACs)

Systemic Change - Effective Governance Structure for HEIs: Transforming the regulatory structure

The new policy strives to create a fine balance ensuring ‘minimal government and maximum governance’ in the HEIs and facilitating continued excellence in education and research. The Ministry of Human Resource will be called Ministry of Education

Key changes that the policy advocates around improving the governance standards in HEIs:

For each HEI there will be a Board of Governors (BoG) consisting of highly qualified, competent, and dedicated individuals with proven capabilities and commitment to the institution.

The BoG of each institution will be empowered to govern the institution free of any political or external interference, make all appointments, including that of head of the institution, and take all decisions regarding governance.

National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA), will be set up to regulate in a ‘light but tight’ and facilitative manner, meaning that a few important matters - particularly financial integrity, good governance, and full online and offline public disclosure of all finances, procedures, faculty/staff, courses, and educational outcomes - will be very effectively regulated, while leaving the rest to the judgment of the HEIs, which is essential to institutional autonomy, innovation, and pursuit of excellence.

National Accreditation Authority (NAA) will be tasked to provide accreditation to HEIs and in the long run it will become a binary process in line with global practice.

A new General Education Council (GEC) shall be set up to frame expected learning outcomes for higher education programmes, also referred to as ‘graduate attributes.’

National Higher Education Qualification Framework (NHEQF) will be formulated by the GEC and will be in sync with the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF). Higher education qualifications leading to a degree/diploma/certificate will be described by the NHEQF in terms of such learning outcomes. In addition, the GEC will set up facilitative norms for issues, such as credit transfer, equivalence, etc. through the NHEQF.

Higher Education Grants Commission (HEGC) will be created and will take care of funding and financing of higher education based on transparent criteria, including the Institutional Development Plans, (IDPs) prepared by the institutions and the progress made in the implementation of the IDPs. HEGC will be entrusted with disbursement of scholarships and on developmental funds for new focus areas and expanding quality programme offerings in HEIs across disciplines and fields.

The professional councils, such as ICAR, VCI and NCTE etc, referred to as Professional Standard Setting Bodies (PSSBs) will be invited to be members of the GEC. As members of the GEC, they would specify the curriculum framework, against which educational institutions will prepare their own curricula. They would also set the standards or expectations in focussed fields of learning and practice while having no regulatory role.

The regulatory system, with the National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) is set to function as one single regulator for the higher education sector, including teacher education, but excluding medical and legal education.

Mode of Education to become more flexible (blended approach). National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) would be created. E-courses will be developed in eight regional languages initially and virtual labs will be developed

National Research Foundation (NRF) to promote high quality research. NRF will be soon set-up and it would look after funding, mentoring, and building ‘quality of research’ in India. The NRF aims to fund researchers working across streams in India. In order to bring non-science disciplines of research in its ambit, NRF will fund research projects across four major disciplines –Sciences; Technology; Social Sciences; and Arts and Humanities.

NEP’s Student-centric approach

As a school student:

For schools, the purpose is to make learning less stressful and more learner oriented. New subjects like coding will be introduced at an earlier level, from class 6, to modernize the syllabi, as per the policy.
The NEP also envisages exams for students from Class 3 onwards. All students will take school examinations in Grades 3, 5, and 8, which will be conducted by the appropriate authority. Board exams for grades 10 and 12 will be continued, but redesigned with holistic development as the aim
The policy states that the Government of India will constitute a ‘Gender Inclusion Fund’ to build the nation’s capacity to provide equitable quality education for all girls as well as transgender students
A key highlight of the New Education Policy is establishing a common guiding set of National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) that will be developed by 2022, by the National Council for Technical Education (NCTE)
The NEP sticks to the ‘three-language formula’ while emphasising that no language would be imposed on anyone. The policy document also lays emphasis on Sanskrit, which it calls an important modern language mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Sanskrit will be offered at all levels of school and higher education as an important, enriching option for students, including as an option in the three-language formula.
Board exams will be made ‘easier’, as they will test primarily core capacities and competencies, stress will be reduced to students and parents. The policy also suggests options to make exams stress-free. For instance, school boards could provide options to students on whether they want to take a tough maths exam or the comparatively easier version.

Image by Newslaundry, dated 12 Aug 2020

As a Higher Education student:

The NEP is more student centric, giving flexibility to students to pursue their passion at the same time enhancing their skills enabling them to become more employable.

Undergraduate degrees will be of either a three or four-year duration, with multiple exit options within this period, with appropriate certifications for those dropping out at a certain point in the course. HEIs will also be able to offer masters courses of different designs, based on the undergraduate degree of the student.
The NEP replaces homogenous format (arts and science) to concept of singular streams (arts/science) called Liberal Education

The notion of a physical campus or geographical location to dissolve giving flexibility to students to study either in a national or an international institution

A multidisciplinary approach to implement an “Academic Bank of Credit (ABC)”, which will be able to digitally store academic credits earned from various recognised HEIs (national and international). This will allow degrees from an HEI to be awarded considering credits earned.
ABC explained

Up to grade 5 pre-schools: a new basic learning program will be created by government for parents to teach children up to 3 years at home and for preschool 3 to 6
Grades 6 to 8 Middle School, - From 6th standard onwards vocational courses available
Grades 8 to 11 High School - From 8th to 11 students can choose subjects
Grades 12 onwards Graduation: Any Degree will be 4 years and all graduate courses will have major and minor, for example, a science student can have Physics as Major and Music as a minor. Any combination can be chosen with multiple entry and exit from any course. The credit system for graduation for each year will allow students to receive credits which can be utilized later should they decide to take a break in the course and complete later. The syllabus will be reduced to core knowledge of any subject only and more focus on student practical and application knowledge

Top 100 Universities across globe will be allowed to set their campuses in India. These foreign universities will be given special dispensation regarding regulatory, governance, and content norms on par with other autonomous institutions of India.

As a researcher

National Research Foundation (NRF)

A robust and responsive research ecosystem is needed to accelerate the pace of economic, social and academic pursuit in India. The NRF will be an institution specially set up to help channel systematic investment in research and innovation for India which has been low (0.69% of GDP) in comparison to the US (2.8%), China (2.1%) Israel (4.3%) and South Korea (4.2%).

NRF will promote a culture of research in Indian Education ecosystem by:

funding competitive peer-reviewed grant proposals of all types and across all disciplines
seeding, growing, and facilitating research at academic institutions, particularly at universities and colleges where research is currently in a nascent stage, through mentoring of such institutions
acting as a liaison between researchers and government as well as industry, so that research scholars are constantly made aware of the most urgent and current national research issues
ensuring policymakers are constantly made aware of the latest research breakthroughs; this would allow breakthroughs to be brought into policy and/or implementation in an optimal fashion;
recognising outstanding research and progress achieved via NRF funding/mentoring across subjects, through prizes and special seminars recognising the work of the researchers.

NEP and Teachers’ development

Stand-alone Teacher Education institutions will be converted into multi-disciplinary institutions by 2030 offering 4-year integrated teacher preparation programme.
All fresh Ph.D. entrants, irrespective of discipline, will be required to take credit-based courses in teaching/education/pedagogy/writing related to their chosen PhD subject during their doctoral training period.
PhD students will also have a minimum number of hours of actual teaching experience gathered through teaching assistantships and other means. Ph.D. programmes at universities around the country will be reoriented for this purpose.
A National Mission for Mentoring will be established, with a large pool of outstanding senior/retired faculty – including those with the ability to teach in Indian languages to provide mentorship to university/ college teachers.

UK India Alignment

MOBILITY
NEP Highlights	What it means for UK HEIs
Schools: The existing 10+2 board structure at schools is dropped, and the new structure will be 5+3+3+4 years of schooling. All schools’ exams will be semester wise twice a year. The actual number of years remain the same and the new structure now includes play school/ nursery/ kindergarten classes combined with classes 1 and 2. This gives a thrust to early childhood care and education, formalising early education into the formal system. The new structure divides the structure into cognitive developmental stages of the child – early childhood, school years, and secondary stage.	This new system should not affect UG admissions in the UK as the number of years Indians stay in school remain the same. The new policy does however allow students to exit at grade 10 and re-enter the system at grade 11 and this might offer opportunities for Indian students to finish their schooling in the UK and transition to the HE system there more seamlessly.
Higher education: All undergraduate degrees will be 3-4 years in duration with multiple exit and entry options within this period. If a student completes one year, they get a basic certificate, if they complete two years, they will get a diploma and if they complete the full course, the student receives a degree certificate. So, no year of any student will be wasted if students decide to break the course in between. An Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) system will allow a student to digitally store the academic credits earned from various HEIs so that the degree from an HEI can be awarded considering credits earned.	This means credit recognition / transfer agreements will become simpler for Indian students and HEIs will find it easier to accept students from Indian institutions at any point in their education journey. If students decide to defer going to the UK by a year (e.g. a pandemic situation like this one would make this a highly possible scenario) they can simply transfer credits and join later and continue their journey. Traditional mobility timelines are no longer the only options. UK HEIs will have the flexibility to admit student mid-way through their degrees perhaps even increasing their intake numbers. This enables a standardised agreement on UK-India HEI partnerships and collaborations as well around credit transfer, making the process easier. Academic flexibility ensures students won’t lose time, effort and money if they change their HEI or don’t complete the full course.
All programmes, courses, curricula, pedagogy across subjects, including those in in-class, in online and in ODL modes, as well as student support will aim to achieve global standards of quality. This will also help in having larger numbers of international students studying in India and provide greater mobility to students in India who may wish to visit, study at, transfer credits to, or carry out research at institutions abroad, and vice versa.	This provides higher opportunities around partnership and collaboration between Indian and UK HEIs which could lead to higher mobility, research, joint programmes and more. Indian institutions will be comparable to international standards and that increases the various touchpoints for UK HEIs in India manifold. TNE could become more viable. Equally outward mobility from the UK allows UK HEIs to offer diverse programme opportunities to their students through agreements with Indian HEIs.
RESEARCH
HEIs will have the flexibility to offer different designs of Masters programmes, (a) there may be a two-year programme with the second year devoted entirely to research for those who have completed the three-year Bachelors programme; (b) for students completing a four-year Bachelors programme with Research there could be a one-year Masters programme and (c) there may be an integrated five-year Bachelor’s/Masters programme. Undertaking a PhD shall require either a master’s degree or a 4-year bachelor’s degree with Research. The M.Phil. programme will be discontinued.	The acceptance of one-year master’s Programme after completing a 4-year bachelor’s programme with Research, will create opportunities for UK universities to promote and attract Indian students for the one-year masters’, which has been in debate for many years. This will ensure confidence in Indian students studying PG in UK and will further increase numbers to UK. The Indian government’s official recognition of the UK one-year masters too will be in focus now. It will be important for UK HEIs to align the subjects with the Research year in a 4 Year Degree programme. UK HEIs need to ensure they can accept Indian students at any point in the UG journey.
CONSULTANCY
Model public universities for holistic education at par with Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), Indian Institute of Management (IIMs), etc called Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERU) will be set up and will aim to reach the global status.	This will open paid consultancy opportunities in developing academic and accreditation framework at par with HEIs of UK and other countries. Mobility can be encouraged as part of MoUs and long-term partnerships with the MERUs.
HEIs as part of multidisciplinary education will focus on research & innovation by setting up start-up incubation centres, technology development centres, centres in frontier areas of research, greater industry-academic linkages, and inter-disciplinary research including humanities/social science research.	Opportunities around paid consultancy, faculty/ student exchange and curriculum development and training to support the HEIs both at National and State levels. This will also encourage UK students to come and spend a semester/ year and earn credits.
Effective learning requires relevant curriculum, engaging pedagogy, continuous formative assessment and adequate student support. The curriculum to be updated regularly aligning with the latest knowledge requirements and shall meet specified learning outcomes. High-quality pedagogy is necessary to successfully impart the curricular material to students; pedagogical practices determine the learning experiences that are provided to students - thus directly influencing learning outcomes. The assessment methods to be scientific in approach. Further, the development of capacities that promotes student wellness, - such as fitness, good health, psycho-social well-being, and sound ethical grounding - are also critical for high-quality learning. Often, higher education represents the first time in students’ lives when they are living and working independently, leading to stress and pressures in student life leading to threat to their wellness. Robust care and support systems are thus vital for maintaining beneficial conditions for student wellness and form an important precondition for effective learning. Institutions and faculty will have the autonomy to innovate on matters of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment within a broad framework of higher education qualifications that ensures consistency across institutions and equivalence across programmes, in the ODL (online distance learning), online and the traditional ‘in-class’ modes (blended approach). Important to note here: In February 2020, the government announced that the top 100 institutions in India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework can apply to offer fully online degrees. Otherwise, however, Indian universities and colleges are not permitted to offer more than 20 per cent of a degree programme online.	These will open new avenues for UK HEIs to work closely with Indian counterparts for long-term consultancy, faculty development, online curriculum development and training. Many Indian HEIs would like to adopt and have access to world-class content and academician by initiating long term and mutually beneficial partnerships in the space of knowledge economy.
PARTNERSHIPS
India to be promoted as a global study destination providing premium education at affordable costs and restore its role as a Viswa Guru (world leader). High performing Indian universities to be encouraged to set up campuses in other countries, and similarly, select universities (e.g., those from among the top 100 universities in the world) to be permitted to operate in India. A legislative framework facilitating such entry will be put in place, and such universities will be given special dispensation regarding regulatory, governance, and content norms on par with other autonomous institutions of India.	This is a historic step and will allow UK HEIs to open campus with 100% FDI or in partnership with a local partner. This will allow UK HEIs to recruit students in India and offer flexibility to study part of the degree in UK or in India. Credits earned in both countries will contribute towards awarding a degree. This will ensure students have higher job opportunities. Legislation will be soon be submitted to this effect.

Refer National Education Policy India

For any questions please write to aatreyee.guhathakurta@britishcouncil.org

Authored and compiled by the India Education team.

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