5 Years Of NEP: A Renaissance in India's Education Landscape | OPINION
The year 2025 marks the fifth anniversary of the National Education Policy 2020, and it serves as a powerful symbol of strength, rootedness, and stability. Over these transformative five years, NEP 2020 has evolved into an enduring framework for reimagining India's education system — one that marries tradition and innovation, champions inclusivity, and centres the learner as the agent of change.
NEP 2020 redefined the essence of quality education by moving beyond rote learning to a four-dimensional knowledge framework informed by Vedic traditions: direct learning, self-learning, peer learning, and experiential learning. This multidimensional approach is tailor-made for a knowledge economy; it cultivates critical thinking, creativity, character, and competence. Rooted in India's civilizational ethos yet oriented toward future readiness, the policy ushers in an era where learning is dynamic, holistic, and empowering.
AICTE's Operationalisation Of NEP Vision In Engineering Education
In the engineering domain, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has effectively translated NEP's philosophical underpinnings into pragmatic reforms:
Outcome-Based Education & Academic Bank of Credits: AICTE's embrace of outcome-based education ensures that learning is measurable and competency-driven, while the Academic Bank of Credits enables portability and modular accumulation of academic achievements.
Multidisciplinary Minor Degrees: Engineering students can now pursue minor specialisations in humanities, design, management, and emerging technologies, realizing NEP's vision of multidisciplinary learning.
Multiple Entry–Exit Framework: Students are empowered to pause and rejoin education, resuming studies without loss of progress, aligning perfectly with NEP's learner-centric flexibility.
Inclusive Scholarships & Schemes: Flagship initiatives like SAKSHAM (for differently-abled students), PRAGATI (for women in engineering), SARASWATI (for female BBA/BCA students), and YASHASWI remain anchored in NEP's commitment to education for the last mile.
Curriculum Revamp: AICTE has phased out obsolete technical content and woven in contemporary themes—AI, sustainability, entrepreneurship, ethics, and Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)—ensuring relevance and ethos.
Innovation Ecosystem: With over 400 IDEA Labs, the Productisation Scheme, KAPILA (to cultivate IPR awareness), and Smart India Hackathons, AICTE fosters innovation that moves seamlessly from classroom ideas to real-world solutions.
UGC's Equally Important Role In Implementing NEP 2020
While AICTE has spearheaded reforms in technical education, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has complemented this transformation across higher education institutions:
Multidisciplinary Universities & Research Focus: UGC's rollout of umbrella frameworks like Cluster Universities, the GIAN program, and encouragement for Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs) aligns with NEP's ambition of research-driven, holistic universities.
Curriculum and Credit Flexibility: UGC has adopted the Academic Bank of Credits and Multiple Entry–Exit systems across undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Learners now have the liberty to transfer credits between institutions and pick up unfinished degrees at a later stage.
Integration of IKS within Mainstream: UGC mandates elective courses on Indian Knowledge Systems covering Vastu Shastra, Ayurveda, ancient water management, and sustainable agro-technologies — institutionalising a civilizational framework within modern curricula.
Teacher Education Reforms: The UGC has moved teacher education towards an integrated 4-year B.Ed.–M.Ed. programs, emphasising pedagogical competence, ICT, inclusivity, and continuous professional development, in line with NEP's quality teaching goals.
Strengthening Foundational Literacy and Numeracy: UGC supports university-college partnerships, community outreach, and remedial programs to achieve NEP's imperative of foundational skill mastery.
Promoting Innovation & Start-ups in Universities: Under UGC's aegis, institutions are encouraged to set up incubation centres, innovation cells, and industry linkages, complementing AICTE's IDEA Labs ethos.
Inclusivity and Access: UGC supports scholarships, fee waivers, and targeted schemes for SC/ST, OBC, EWS, and women students across general and professional education, echoing NEP's commitment to equitable access.
Civilizational Renaissance & Indianisation
Beyond structural reform, one of NEP's most culturally resonant achievements is the revival of Bharatiya Gyaan Parampara. The Indian Knowledge System (IKS) is now embedded meaningfully in technical and general education via dedicated IKS Cells, electives, and even translation platforms such as Anuvadini, which seamlessly translate ancient Sanskrit, Prakrit, or regional texts into modern English and other languages—bridging millennia of wisdom with modern inquiry.
This civilizational revival is not mere tokenism; it's an invitation to students to proudly engage with India's heritage. Students in engineering, management, biotechnology, and social sciences encounter modules on Vastu, Ayurveda, traditional water harvesting, and sustainable architecture—learning not only to innovate but to contextualize innovation in India's ecological and socio-cultural fabric.
Progress At The 5-Year Milestone
As NEP 2020 reaches the 5-year milestone in August 2025, we see that the policy is far more than a legislative document; it is becoming a lived reality:
Robust Institutional Frameworks: AICTE and UGC's realigned regulations, credit systems, and guidelines have empowered institutions to implement NEP in letter and spirit.
Scalability & National Reach: Scholarship schemes, IDEA Labs, multidisciplinary programs, and rural outreach initiatives are now visible across NITs, IITs, state universities, private colleges, and even rural campuses.
Cultural Anchoring: Students across disciplines are engaging with IKS not only as electives but also as lenses for creativity, ethics, and sustainable living.
Innovation Outcomes: Student start-ups, patent filings, prototypes, and hackathon winners show that learning is translating into real outcomes.
Emerging Gaps & Opportunities: Challenges remain in infrastructure readiness in remote institutions, teacher training scale, quality assurance in multidisciplinary offerings, and bridging urban–rural divides, but the policy's framework offers pathways to address these.
Road Ahead Toward Viksit Bharat 2047
NEP 2020 is not a one-time reform; it is a long-term blueprint for building a knowledge-driven, self-reliant Bharat. As we stride toward Viksit Bharat @2047, several priorities emerge:
Assess and Sharpen Outcomes: Rigorous evaluation mechanisms, quality audits, and feedback loops are needed to ensure that multidisciplinary and IKS modules are not superficial add-ons but deeply integrated and assessed.
Teacher Capacity & Professional Growth: Continued investment in professional development, digital pedagogy, research ethics, and IKS fluency for educators.
Infrastructure & Digital Equity: Expanding IDEA Labs, digital classrooms, and broadband access—especially in remote areas—will be critical to scale the policy's impact.
Research & University Autonomy: Granting autonomy to promising institutions, catalysing research clusters, and enabling cross-institutional research collaborations.
Lifelong Learning Ecosystems: Fully operationalising the Academic Bank of Credits to support continuous upskilling, reskilling, and industry collaboration.
Inclusive Focus: Close monitoring of schemes like SAKSHAM, PRAGATI, SARASWATI, and YASHASWI — especially in tribal and rural pockets — and ensuring that inclusive access translates into meaningful outcomes.
NEP 2020's fifth anniversary is not merely a policy milestone; it is a testament to India's resolve to transform education into a vehicle of national growth, cultural revival, and global leadership. The complementary and expansive roles of AICTE and UGC across technical and higher education magnify this transformation: together, they are operationalising a vision of curricula that are disciplinary in spirit, multidisciplinary in design, and civilisational in ethos.
The outputs are emerging: graduates equipped to think critically, act ethically, innovate fearlessly, and remain anchored in India's timeless knowledge systems. Institutions are becoming hubs of multidisciplinary research, startups, cultural identity, and societal relevance. Innovation labs, credit frameworks, flexible pathways, and inclusive schemes are creating an ecosystem where every learner is supported to succeed.
Yet the harvest from this goldmine is far from complete. As NEP's frameworks gain deeper traction in the coming years, India is poised to realise its ambition of becoming one of the world's most efficient, skilled, and knowledge-based economies by 2047. If the first five years have built a firm foundation, then the next two decades can yield a flourishing Viksit Bharat, where education is not just preparation for life but a civilisational journey of self-reliance, equity, and innovation.
In celebrating NEP 2020's fifth anniversary, we celebrate not just policy or reform, but India's educational awakening — one that embraces its ancient wisdom even as it charges toward a future defined by knowledge leadership, inclusivity, and innovation.
(The writer is a technocrat, political analyst, and author)
[Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs, and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, and views of ABP Network Pvt. Ltd.]
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