National Education Policy 2020 announced, aims to increase spending to 6% of GDP

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the National Education Policy 2020. The new policy aims to pave way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems in the country, the Ministry of Human Resource Development said. 

This policy will replace the 34-year-old National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986.

The new policy aims for universalisation of education from pre-school to secondary level with 100 % Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in school education by 2030.  

The National Research Foundation will be created as an apex body for fostering a strong research culture and building research capacity across higher education, the ministry said in a press release. 

Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) will be set up as a single overarching umbrella body for entire higher education, excluding medical and legal education. HECI to have four independent verticals  - National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) for regulation, General Education Council (GEC ) for standard setting, Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) for funding, and National Accreditation Council( NAC) for accreditation. Public and private higher education institutions will be governed by the same set of norms for regulation, accreditation and academic standards.

Affiliation of colleges is to be phased out in 15 years and a stage-wise mechanism is to be established for granting graded autonomy to colleges. Over a period of time, it is envisaged that every college would develop into either an Autonomous degree-granting College, or a constituent college of a university.

The Centre and the states will work together to increase the public investment in the education sector to reach 6% of GDP at the earliest.