The National Education Policy has been a victim of ignorance

The policy's proposals are misrepresented so often that one wonders if its critics have actually read it

- ANURAG BEHAR

We are at the fifth anniversary of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Having been a member of the NEP drafting committee, I am frequently asked, "You invested so much time on this, what do you think has actually happened on the ground?" The tone ranges from accusatory to genuinely curious. My response: "It's too early to tell." This is partly because two of these five years were roiled by the pandemic, forcing schools to shut down and governments to scramble. And then at least one year after that was spent on recovering lost learning. Combine that with the 20-year time horizon of the NEP and it does seem too early to say anything on how successful the policy has been.

But that would be a cop-out, because the NEP did set out milestones along this 20-year horizon. The clearer and more definitive ones were written down. So, while it is too early to tell its effect on Indian education, it's not so when it comes to assessing the efforts to bring it to life on the ground. While the NEP is more transformative for higher education than school education, I will limit my assessment to school education, which I observe closely.