PDF Download 
Arpan Tulsyan, Ed., The NEP 2020: Forging Pathways for India’s Next Decade of Learning, Observer Research Foundation, January 2026.
By 2020, when the new National Education Policy (NEP) was enacted—34 years after the previous education policy (1986) and 28 years since its last revisions (1992)—India had changed in profound ways: its economy had diversified, technology had advanced rapidly, educational aspirations and professional mobility had expanded, and global benchmarking had become harder to ignore. NEP 2020 sought to resolve many long-standing problems in India’s education system: uneven learning outcomes, language barriers, poor health and nutrition among schoolchildren, outdated assessment systems, fragmented skill pathways, and weak bridges between education and employability.
The policy proposed a system-wide reset, with a strong focus on foundational literacy and numeracy as well as new-age competencies at the core. Additionally, it offered a structured flexibility across the education life-cycle, enabling multidisciplinary learning, credit portability, and multiple, non-linear pathways that break the subject silos. Equally high-impact change is reimagining India’s governance and research architecture through simplified regulation, greater institutional autonomy, and the creation of a National Research Foundation that links education more directly to research and innovation. NEP also offered explicit global and future-facing orientation—for the first time, India’s education policy emphasised internationalisation, skills for emerging technologies, and preparing learners for a globally interconnected knowledge economy.
Together, these reforms signalled a decisive move away from incremental change towards a holistic reconfiguration of India’s education ecosystem, linking learning, institutions, governance, and global engagement within a single policy vision. It is this integrated character of NEP 2020 that this volume seeks to examine. Each chapter in this publication focuses on a critical lever within the NEP ecosystem, reflecting a shared analytical stance that educational outcomes are often cumulative and systemic. The contributors to this volume come from diverse professional backgrounds but share a common concern of how to translate policy ambitions into durable learning outcomes, especially for those who have historically been left behind. Together, the nine articles in this compendium trace the pathways by which NEP 2020 seeks to rewire India’s education ecosystem and where the hard work of implementation lies.
The volume opens with an article by Anustup Nayak, Sanjay Koushik, and Shreya Singh that examines early childhood education, which until NEP, sat at the margins of policy discourse. The authors use case studies from Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh to demonstrate how NEP’s emphasis on universal, quality early childhood education could reshape India’s learning trajectory. They also raise difficult questions about workforce capacity, institutional coordination, and the risks of expanding access without safeguarding quality. The article’s recommendation is straightforward: institutionalise school readiness as a measurable, system-level goal, rather than treating early education as a peripheral concern.
Language of instruction is the next frontier, which requires a delicate balance that preserves both identity and opportunity. In her article, Namita Goel explores the use of the home or familiar language as medium of instruction in the early years. Framing the issue of learning language as one of effectiveness, she argues that strong first-language (L1) foundations are essential for comprehension, participation, and equity; they accelerate, rather than delay, the acquisition of English and other additional languages. Drawing on global mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) evidence and Indian field examples, the chapter critiques ‘early English-only’ approaches that result in shallow learning, cognitive challenges, and passive classrooms. It proposes a late-exit, additive multilingual model aligned with NEP 2020 and National Curriculum Framework-School Education 2023 with the following steps: secure concepts in L1; introduce English or another L2 through orality-first routines; and plan structured transitions to L2 as a medium of instruction in upper primary.
A child’s ability to learn is inseparable from their physical and mental well-being. In the third chapter, K.S. Uplabdh Gopal analyses NEP’s important conceptual shift towards a more holistic approach, recognising that nutrition, preventive care, mental health, and safe school environments directly affect learning outcomes. The author documents gains in nutrition support, disability screening, and the gradual inclusion of mental health conversations in schools, and highlights persistent gaps in inter-ministerial coordination, human resources, monitoring, and equity. The article’s key recommendation is to move from programmatic layering to system integration, i.e., clearer joint stewardship between education and health ministries, digitised health records that travel with the child, ring-fenced funding for counselling and wellness, and explicit inclusion of life-saving skills such as CPR and first aid in the curriculum.
Ultimately, assessments determine what schools prioritise, teachers teach, and students learn. Typically, India’s assessment culture captures narrow learning through exam performance, often at the expense of conceptual understanding and application. NEP 2020 promises a shift to competency-based assessment, though such transitions are not easy. In their chapter, Kavita Sharma and Mansi Tejpal discuss what exactly it would take to realign curriculum, pedagogy, teacher training, and accountability systems around meaningful assessments. The authors trace India’s long journey from examination-driven evaluation towards assessment as a tool for learning, anchored in global shifts from behaviourist to constructivist learning principles. NEP 2020 is presented as a course correction rather than a rejection of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). The chapter details how competency-based assessment, stage-appropriate evaluation, and inclusive and threat-free practices are now being institutionalised for deeper learning, metacognition, and student agency.
Technology enters the education discourse as both an opportunity and risk. NEP was enacted at a time when EdTech provided continuity amidst the pandemic-induced disruption, but it has also exposed deep inequalities. Neha Parti’s article traces the evolution of educational technology in India, while critically examining how technology interacts with pedagogy, equity, and governance under NEP 2020. It shows that although device penetration and digital content availability have expanded rapidly, learning gains remain uneven, and uncritical adoption risks furthering exclusion, passive consumption, and cultural bias. Positioning NEP 2020 as a turning point, the chapter analyses institutional mechanisms such as the National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) and the proposed National Education Technology Forum (NETF). Drawing on data and field observations, the author highlights persistent digital divides, not only in access, but in skills, support ecosystems, and meaningful use.
As learners move through the schooling system, the question of vocational skills and employability becomes important. In India, vocational education is often seen as a fallback option, rather than an aspirational pathway. NEP 2020 attempts to erase this divide by integrating vocational education into mainstream schooling and emphasising skills alongside academic learning. The sixth chapter by Vijeta Ananthkumar and Shubhankar Bajpai outlines the steps needed for this ambition to scale through ingrained perceptions, institutional fragmentation, and weak industry connect. The authors discuss how NEP 2020 fundamentally restructures India’s vocational education system by introducing a flexible, credit-based, outcomes-driven process, allowing for knowledge to be accumulated, transferred, and utilised across educational institutes, and the labour market.
Professional education also occupies a unique position within the NEP framework, particularly medical education, which has immediate and visible social costs, affecting health equity, system resilience, and public trust. The chapter by K. Madan Gopal explores how NEP 2020’s principles like flexibility, interdisciplinarity, and quality assurance, interact with the realities of medical training and health system needs. The article documents tangible progress and challenges over the past five years, and notes, in particular, the state-level variation in implementation, shaped by local contexts. Readers will find a nuanced assessment of where NEP has altered medical education’s trajectory, where it has not, and what is required to produce doctors who are clinically competent, ethically grounded, and socially responsive.
Between intent and impact of any policy lie think tanks and knowledge institutions that interpret, critique, and shape reform trajectories. The penultimate chapter by Nilanjan Ghosh highlights the importance of independent analyses, policy dialogues, and long-term engagement for knowledge production as a national development input. This chapter situates think tanks within NEP 2020 as critical actors in addressing India’s “ingenuity gap”, or the gap between complex societal problems and the production of actionable ideas to solve them. The author positions NEP 2020’s emphasis on multidisciplinary research and the National Research Foundation as enabling conditions for a new knowledge ecosystem and recommends formal integration of think tanks within.
The volume closes by looking outward. The last chapter by Arpan Tulsyan examines NEP’s ambition to not only reform India’s domestic education system, but reinstate the country to the position of ‘Vishwa Guru’—a global education destination and partner. The article reframes internationalisation under NEP 2020 as a strategic system reform, rather than a narrow agenda of student mobility. Situating India within global trends, it argues that internationalisation has shifted toward “internationalisation at home”, encompassing curriculum reforms, credit transfers, joint degrees, research collaborations, virtual exchanges, and the setting up of foreign university campuses. While documenting concrete post-2020 developments, it also examines outbound mobility, research exchange programmes, and diaspora engagement, positioning internationalisation as both an educational and geo-economic strategy.
This volume seeks to offer a roadmap for the next decade of learning in India, which will not be forged by policy alone, but by the hard work, every day, in classrooms, institutions, and governance systems. The authors invite readers into this conversation, with the hope that critical engagement today can lead to better learning outcomes tomorrow.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Arpan Tulsyan is a Senior Fellow at ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED). With 16 years of experience in development research and policy advocacy, Arpan ...
Read More +
PREV
