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National Education Policy 2020: Promise and Practice

Published: April 30, 2026

Authors

Umang Raj Gupta and Sonali Jaiswal

Keywords
National education policy, Indian education reform, Literacy rate, Gender gap, Foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), Global benchmarks, 21st century skills

Abstract

Background: National Education Policy 2020 is one of the most radical changes in the Indian system of education in the twenty-first century. It seeks to revolutionize the education system through holistic learning, interdisciplinary knowledge, vocational integration, and digital innovation, and reinforce basic literacy and numeracy. The inclusive policy will also focus on inclusivity, multilingual education, social-emotional development, as well as conserving the cultural and intellectual traditions of India. The policy aims at providing equitable and quality education to all learners by aligning it with other global education systems like Sustainable Development Goal 4.

Purpose: This essay is a critical analysis of NEP 2020 commitments and implications in Indian education. It tries to examine the philosophical underpinnings, policy agenda, and transformational opportunities of the reform and determine the structural and institutional obstacles that can influence its effective execution.

Method: The research takes a conceptual and analytical approach through an extensive literature review of academic literature, policy documents, and secondary sources on education reform in India. Government reports, international policy frameworks, comparative education studies, and empirical results of organisations like UNESCO and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019), NITI, are the key sources. It is also through analysis that international education systems like Finland, Singapore, and Japan have been compared and insights into the system have been provided.

Results: The results indicate that NEP 2020 provides a paradigm shift with its foundation of literacy, experience-based learning, vocational experience, the introduction of technology, and cross-disciplinary education. The study, however, finds that there are major problems of implementation such as teacher readiness, infrastructural differences, digital divide, language policy issues, and coordination among states.

Conclusion: NEP 2020 has great potential to transform Indian education into a more inclusive, flexible, and globally competitive system. However, it will require long-term investment, capacity building on the part of teachers, institutional preparedness, and joint working of policymakers, teachers, and communities to change policy vision into effective practice in the classroom.

References

How to Cite

Umang Raj Gupta and Sonali Jaiswal. National Education Policy 2020: Promise and Practice. Issues Ideas Educ.. 2025, 13, 26-36
National Education Policy 2020: Promise and Practice

Current Issue

PeriodicityBiannually
Issue-1June
Issue-2December
ISSN Print2320-7655
ISSN Online2320-8805
RNI No.CHAENG/2013/49611

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Articles in Journal of Issues and Ideas in Education (Issues Ideas Educ.) by Chitkara University Publications are Open Access articles that are published with licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- CC-BY 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://iie.chitkara.edu.in/. This license permits one to use, remix, tweak and reproduction in any medium, even commercially provided one give credit for the original creation.

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Creative Commons License

Journal of Issues and Ideas in Education by Chitkara University Publications is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://iie.chitkara.edu.in/

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