New Delhi: Five years into the National Education Policy, students and professors aired their grievances during the release of a new report on its performance. Put together by the All India Students’ Association, the verdict was far from laudatory.
“These five years have shown how the government is systematically dismantling India’s education system,” said former DU faculty member Laxman Yadav at the launch of AISA’s NEP@Five report. The panel discussion on the NEP also included professors Atul Sood from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Gopalji Pradhan of Ambedkar University Delhi, and Sandhya Devesan of Delhi University. Students from universities across Delhi attended the event at 25 Meena Bagh earlier this month.
Among the key concerns raised were rising fees, increasing dropout rates, and ‘self-financed’ courses— run without government aid—started by colleges without the necessary infrastructure.
At Ambedkar University Delhi, for instance, first-semester fees for BA (Hons) programmes in history and English increased from Rs 28,230 to Rs 33,500 between 2022 and 2025—an 18.7 per cent hike—according to the report. Similarly, Allahabad University saw the PhD admission fee climb from Rs 500 to Rs 16,000 within the same time span.
The panellists were also critical of universities being encouraged to pursue ‘self-financed courses’ by diversifying funding sources and reducing reliance on government grants. As a result, fee hikes have been particularly steep in such programmes, including Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) and Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc). Self-financed courses are academic programmes offered by universities without any government aid.
“When some teachers and students initially opposed the policy in 2020, they were dismissed with the claim that a changing India requires a changed education policy,” said Yadav.
The panel also expressed growing dissatisfaction with the new courses and syllabi, which they said were drafted without consulting the professors who teach the subjects.
“Even five years ago, we recognised that the NEP was a dilution of both syllabus and education,” said Devesan.
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Upset students
As the discussion progressed, it was no longer limited to professors analysing the NEP. Students from various universities also stepped forward, raising their voices against university administrations and the central government.
Adnan Saifi, a student from Aligarh Muslim University, questioned the university’s decision to discontinue certain courses — such as the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) and the Postgraduate Diploma in Islamic Banking and Finance—citing lack of funding as the reason.
“When students raised questions about the closure of these courses, the administration didn’t even respond. These programmes were quietly removed from the university website,” said Saifi.
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‘Hollowing out mass public education’
The AISA report came to its conclusions based on testimonies and data from more than 20 central and state universities across 12 states, including BHU, JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Ambedkar University Delhi, and Karnataka University.
It examined the NEP’s four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP), which extends the traditional three-year course to four years. The policy supports a multiple-exit system, allowing students to leave after one year with a certificate, after two years with a diploma, and so on. A student who completes all four years graduates with a degree and a specialisation.
This multiple-exit system, however, diverts students from rigorous, research-based education toward precarious, skill-based tracks, according to the report.
“The increased emphasis on skill-based and vocational courses, at the cost of diluting in-depth Honours courses with an option to opt out after every year, caters to the mass proletarianization of the population in an already insecure and volatile service economy,” the report said.
Another sore point was the merger and closure of schools and universities in several states, which panellists said disproportionately affected Dalits, Adivasis, girls, and children with disabilities. In January, the Bhajan Lal Sharma-led BJP government in Rajasthan began merging 449 schools with larger, better-performing ones in their vicinity.
“Between 2017 and 2023, India lost over 87,000 schools, including nearly 77,000 government schools,” the report stated.
In Uttar Pradesh, too, schools with fewer than 50 students are to undergo a similar merging for “smooth teaching operations”, although there is no official clarity yet on the numbers.
“The government has created an education system without knowledge or information,” Yadav said. “NEP 2020 and the government are enabling a silent restructuring by centralising control, hollowing out mass public education, and privileging elite institutions, all while masking it as quality reform.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
As if Indian education, other than a few IITs and IiMs was any good earlier. So many vested interests in India! Indian system has been one of the worst in the world, quantitatively and qualitatively. Smart people manage to escape abroad and a few find success at home. It’s no wonder that India has no innovation.