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HANS SHODH SUDHA. Vol. 1, Issue 3, (2021), pp. 2027
National Education Policies of India: A Comparative Study
with respect to Higher Education
Ms. Sonal Gupta and Mr. P. Achuth
Abstract
In this study, an absolute comparison has been made of the changes in the National Education Policy
(NEP) 2020 against the National Policy of Education (NPE) 1986 in higher education in India, and
presented the differences with the corresponding objective with which it is made Several excerpts of
interviews with expert academicians on the NEP 2020 have also been stated in an attempt to understand
the impact, scope and relevance of those changes on the India’s higher education sector. The present
study is also intended to investigate the quality of higher education that the coming generations can
expect through personal reasoning of the reader in reference to the conclusion drawn here.
Key Words: National Education Policy (NEP), National Policy of Education (NPE), Higher Edu-
cation
Introduction wellbeing and in developing India..” (NEP, p.33).
The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has been Quality higher education is the key to a happier,
formulated after more than three decades by the cohesive, cultured, productive, innovative, progres-
Government of India headed by Shri. Narendra Modi sive, and prosperous nation. Through this research,
as the Prime Minister keeping in mind the needs of an attempt has been made to gauge the efficiency of
modern India, its requirements in the 21" century, the changes made in achieving the objectives men-
and its integration with the world standards, The NEP tioned, and also tries to forecast its feasibility through
2020 claims to cater completely to the modern world a peep into expert opinions about this matter.
requirements in terms of high-quality education and Background
quality of workforce in general. The policy stresses Since its independence, India has had three dif-
on multidisciplinary learning and holistic education ferent education policies namely- National Policy
as the key to achieving the ultimate end Quality of Education (NPE) 1968, National Policy of Edu-
Education according to the world standards. cation 1986 and the new National Education
The system of education till now has been very Policy 2020. All the three Education Policies have
much fragmented and diverse, due to which standard had different objectives and approaches according
operational procedure, standardised quality and stan- to the needs of the then India and its population. The
dard outcome has been difficult to formulate and NPE 1968 was formed by the government of India
measure. The tasks of administration, regulation and headed by Smt. Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister
performance appraisal has been posing an increas- with the prominent objectives of education for em-
ing challenge to the regulatory authorities as many ployability, promote national growth and integration,
of the Indian Higher Education Institutes (HEIS) universalisation of education and emphasis on moral
have already adopted to the modern needs, and many values among other objectives. The NPE 1986 was
have not. So there lacks a standard base to measure formed by the government of India headed by Shri.
the institutes and put them on the same line. Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister with the promi-
“Higher education plays an extremely important nent objectives of reducing inequalities in education
role in promoting human as well as societal
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HANS SHODH SUDHA. Vol. 1, Issue 3, (2021), pp. 2027
opportunities, continual learning and specialisation rather than just a subject expert. Importance has also
in education, and standardisation in administration been laid on internationalisation of education and
and regulation mechanism in HEIs among other international integration of Indian HEIs to make India
objectives. the “Vishwa guru” again.
K. Vinothkumar, (2018) The focus of higher As we can easily observe the drift in the focus
education in 1986 was more towards equality and of Higher Education and its outcome requirements,
equity in reach of higher education but now the fo- it can be said that these policies should be amended
cus has drifted towards a more holistic and according to the needs and hence, India strongly
multidisciplinary approach to global education along needed a New Education Policy for the 21st
with increase in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER). The century.
NEP 2020 aims at catering to the changing spectra Objectives of the present study
and perspective of the industrial revolution, and
wants to mould the future Indian workforce into This article will observe the prominent differ-
holistic and complete individuals capable of inde- ences in the NEP 2020 and the NPE 1986 in the
pendent decision making, independent action and Higher Education sector of India, and will briefly
producing independent progress, and to achieve this, introspect the changes made in accordance with the
the NEP 2020 has observed a strong need to diver- objective of NEP 2020.
sify education and include multidisciplinary knowl- 1. To compare the NPE 1986 and NEP
edge and vocational knowledge along with main 2020with respect to Higher Education in
subject of study instead of just specialisation of sub- India.
jects from a young age. Due importance has also been 2. To evaluate the changes made in accordance
given to inculcating basic vocational skills and soft with the objective of NEP 2020.
skills and also inculcation of humanistic value edu- A Comparative summary
cation such as “universal human values of truth
(satya), righteous conduct (dharma), peace (shanti), After studying NPE 1986 and NEP 2020, some
love (prem), nonviolence (ahimsa), scientific tem- of the main points of differences with respect to
per, citizenship values, and also life-skills...” (NEP Higher Education can be summarised as follows:
2020, p.37) to make a person a “complete individual”
Table-1: Main Points of Differences between NPE 1986 and NEP 2020
Basis NPE 1986 NEP 2020
Vocational l Vocational Education system was l The previous structure continues to
/ Holistic managed carefully with stages such exist, but the vocational education is
Education as Primary stage (class 1-5-SUPW/ to be included in all the
WE), Secondary stage (class 9-10- undergraducate programs on a credit
SUPW/WE), Tertiary stage (class 11- basis.
12-Atal Tinkering Labs was l National Committee for Integration
introiduced recently in this regard) of Vocational Education (NCIVE) to
and othe formal programmes such as be established for the same.
ITIs and Skill centres were formed. l Emphasis to be laid on integrating
l The formal programs were carefully the 'mainstream education' and
planned according to the needs of the vocational training and bridge the
industry, and their curriculum was gap between them.
formed accordingly. l The NCIVE's sole duty is to ensure
l Emphasis was laid on apprenticeship Holistic development in the candi-
training and practical knowledge in dates by compulsorily inculcating
the special programs. vocational training and value edu-
cation in all the undergraduate
programs.
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HANS SHODH SUDHA. Vol. 1, Issue 3, (2021), pp. 2027
Curriculum l Curiculum was designed by Curricu- l Accredition norms to be made to
lum Development Centres (CDCs), categorise the autonomous colleges
and various CDCs were to be set-up and universities into- Researc ori-
to foster the needs of specialisation ented and Teaching oriented based
and application-oriented study. on their curriculum.
l Autonomous Colleges wer given au- l Curriculum was bt be designed in line
tonomy in designing curriculum ac- with the regulatory bodies that come
cording to the needs of the local under the Higher Education Commis-
population. sion of India (HECI) (Discussed in
l The overall governance and regula- Regulation of Higher Education) and
tion regarding this matter to be done all the HEIs (especially the single
by state councils (descussed in Regu- stream Institutions) to become
lation of Higher Education) multidisciplinary by 2040.
l Periodical orientation programs and l Integration of vocational studies to be
seminars were to be conducted for done with all undergraduate pro-
proper updating of the curriculum. grams.
System of l Exams and evaluation norms were l Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) to
awarding properly defined in the NPE 1986 and be created to store the credits of each
degree were to be conducted perodically and year of completion of a particular
various degreee courses were de- curriculum, and certificates to be
signed for 3 years, 4 years and so on awarded for every year of comple-
by the CDCs, and the degreee was tion.
awarded on successful completion of l Credits of vocational education,
the prescribed course. multidisciplinary education and
foreign education to be duly re-
corded and recognised.
l Focus on internationalisation of
curriculum to be done and top In-
dian unversities to be allowed to
operated in foreign countries, and
vice-versa.
Higher l Universities, affiliated colleges and l Focus is a ending the fragmentation
Education constituent colleges existed under the of is on ending the fragmentation
Institutes purview of individual state regulatory of higher education. Graded accredi-
and their bodies. tation horms to be defined to
structure l Focus was made on increasing the categorise Higher Education Insti-
number of autonomous colleges in tutes (HEIs) into two categories-Au-
order to give them freedom in design- tonomous colleges (AC) and Uni-
ing curriculum and evaluation ac- versities (Both public and private).
cording to the need of the population l Accreditation norms to be clearly
and industry. made in aspects of curriculum de-
signing and evaluation methodology
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HANS SHODH SUDHA. Vol. 1, Issue 3, (2021), pp. 2027
and the concepts of 'Affiliated col-
leges', 'deemed to be university', 'af-
filiating university', etc. to be
scrapped down.
Regulation l One of the sole objectives of NPE Based on the principle of functional
of Higher 1986 was regulation of higher edu- specialisation, Higher Education Com-
Education cation. Decentralisation of Regula- mission of India (HECI) to be set up as
tion and governance of higher edu- an apex body under which 4 regulatory
cation was proposed and state coun- bodies come :
cils were formed to regulate the state 1. National Higher Education
universities. Regulation Council (NHERC) :
l An Apex body was created in the General regulation in the matters
centre to overview the progress of of administrative and operational
state councils. importance.
l Through later amendments, Regula- 2. National Accreditation Council
tory bodies such as NAAC, UGC, (NAC) : Establish benchmarks
NCTE, ICMR, etc. emerged to effec- for HEIs for administrative and
tively regulate specific types/catego- operational autonomy and ac-
ries of HEIs. crediting the same.
l Problems such as duplication of ef- 3. Higher Education Grants
forts, non-standardisation, etc still Council (HEGC) : Transparent
existed. funding and financing of higher
education.
4. General Education Council
(GEC) : Frame "graduate at-
tributes" and facilitate integration
of vocational and mainstream
studies.
Apart from these, Professional councils
such as ICMR, NCTE, etc. will be col-
lectively called as Professional Standrad
Setting Bodies (PSSBs)
Research l Proper system of PhD. research/edu- l Fresh PhD. students to take
and cation was formulated and various creditbased courses in teaching re-
Development terminologies such as "research", lated to heir field of PhD. and attain
"development", etc. was properly mnimum hours of teaching experi-
defined. ence as a part of their curriculum.
l Proper mechanisms were made for l Research and Development to be
encouraging Research through sti- encouraged from the under-gradua-
pends and scholarships. National tion phase through giving special re-
Research Foundation was proposed search-oriented recognition in the
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