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Shriya Sethi
Research Scholar,
Department of Regional Economics,
MJP Rohilkhand University, Bareilly
ORCID id – https://orcid.org/0009-0008-0887-573X
Abstract— The National Education Policy 2020, approved by the Union Cabinet of India on 29 July 2020, represents the most comprehensive reform of India’s education system since the National Policy on Education of 1986, with particularly far-reaching implications for higher education. This paper examines the structural, regulatory, and institutional transformations envisaged under NEP 2020 for Indian higher education, including the proposed shift to multidisciplinary institutions, the introduction of flexible undergraduate degree structures with multiple entry and exit points, the Academic Bank of Credits, the establishment of the National Research Foundation, and the proposed replacement of existing regulatory bodies with a single Higher Education Commission of India. It further examines the internationalisation dimension of the policy, most concretely realised through the University Grants Commission’s 2023 regulations permitting foreign universities to establish campuses in India, and traces the early, still-limited experience of operational campuses established under this framework. Drawing on government policy documents and verifiable reporting on implementation progress through 2026, the paper assesses both the transformative ambition of NEP 2020 and the considerable gap that persists between policy design and ground-level implementation across India’s vast and heterogeneous higher education landscape.
Keywords— National Education Policy 2020, higher education reform, multidisciplinary education, Academic Bank of Credits, Higher Education Commission of India, internationalisation, foreign university campuses
References
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