How Modi regime used central institutes to enforce NEP on state varsities

In the first part of this series, The Federal reported how documents obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act reveal a largely top-down approach by the Union Education Ministry (MoE) in implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Several state representatives expressed apprehensions about NEP 2020, but these were largely ignored, and consultations with states came across as largely procedural, the RTI responses revealed.

Part 1 | RTI reveals top-down push in NEP 2020, Centre sidelining states' concerns

This part focuses on another aspect of deepening centralisation and a precarious Centre-state relationship — the ministry’s decision to task Centrally Funded Institutes (CFIs) with mentoring state universities to “push” NEP reforms, effectively expanding central oversight into the state university system.

States held unresponsive

The documents also revealed that despite the Centre’s massive push to implement its vision in state universities, several CFIs reported that the state universities were unresponsive — an indicator of the tenuous relationship between the Centre and the states.

Some pointed out problems in collaboration, as some state universities didn’t have vice-chancellors (V-Cs).

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The documents pertain to three zonal meetings held in November and December 2024 between the ministry and the CFIs, chaired by Professor Manjul Bhargava, a renowned mathematician who has been awarded The Fields Medal as well as the Padma Bhushan. He presided over the meeting in his capacity as the chairman of the Education Advisory Council (EdAC).

These meetings were held “with objective to increase adoption of NEP 2020, monitor outcomes and undertake strategic course correction and outreach through workshops, seminars and conferences etc., and the need for further collaboration with State Universities to enhance NEP 2020 implementation efforts”, according to Devendra Kumar Sharma, the then director of the MoE's Department of Higher Education, as quoted in the minutes.

Each CFI was mapped with five to seven state universities or institutions.

'Collaboration' only a lip service?

While the official communication to the CFIs uses terms such as “collaboration” and “mentorship”, minutes of a zonal meeting held on December 5, 2024, state, “Sh Manjul Bhargava, in his intervention, suggested to the participants to take lead and think out of the box and push state universities to adopt NEP 2020 within constraints.”

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Perhaps the “push” was needed as several states were not responding. Representatives from IIT-Roorkee, IIM-Lucknow, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Hyderabad, and IIT-Gandhinagar, as well as representatives from multiple central universities, said they did not get a satisfactory response.

Professor Naveen Kumar Navani from IIT-Roorkee said the “initial response from state universities is low”, while Professor Rajat Subhra Chakraborty from IIT-Kharagpur said the “mapped universities are reluctant to respond”. Representatives from the IITs in Hyderabad and Gandhinagar also said they got no response.

While the official communication to the CFIs uses terms such as “collaboration” and “mentorship”, minutes of a zonal meeting held in December 2024, state, “Sh. Manjul Bhargava, in his intervention, suggested to the participants to take lead and think out of the box and push State Universities to adopt NEP 2020 within constraints.”

Others said there was only a partial response. “Prof M Prashanth, Professor, CU Karnataka mentioned that a letter was sent to all five mapped universities, however the response was received only from Karnataka State Women’s University,” the minutes read.

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The minutes also say that “Prof Joseph Koyippally, CU Kerala, mentioned that Kannur University has responded among six mapped state universities”. Many CFIs, including NIT-Delhi, JNU, IIM-Amritsar and others, said they were still “in the process” of establishing contact.

Absence of V-Cs

Some representatives also pointed out other issues with collaboration — mainly the absence of V-Cs in some state universities. This was noted by representatives from the central universities of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and from a CFI in Malda, West Bengal. Issues of clashes with other bodies were also brought up.

A representative of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Berhampur, Odisha, stated that in their meeting with the National Law University, they were “informed of potential challenges with the Bar Council of India regarding regulatory issues”.

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Similarly, representatives from Pondicherry University said that in the case of the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, “ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) Regulations have to be respected with regard to NEP Implementation”.

Resource sharing challenges

Apart from this, a representative from Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand said that “resource sharing could present challenges due to the physical distances involved”. Another from the CU of South Bihar raised a query “regarding the mobility of students and the challenges related to syllabus alignment between Central and state universities”.

The ministry also asked for a “status update” from CFIs in the form of a template with seven questions — ranging from whether they “intimated” state universities, if they’d planned any activities for collaboration and whether those had been executed. Only two of the seven broke the top-down pattern — “What bottlenecks are you facing in collaborating with SUs?” and “What points of support/clarifications do you require from MoE?”

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The RTI response, however, does not give details of the response by various CFIs.

Detailed questionnaires were sent to Bhargava and Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi. None of them responded.

'NEP should not be imposed'

An IIT director, who did not wish to be named, told The Federal that the collaboration with state universities to implement NEP was “fine”, but it should not be “imposed”.

“Wherever state universities or other universities are asking for things, we will give. But the point is, we cannot impose anything on them. Everybody has their own way of doing things. Every university has its own independence and autonomy. So, it has to be mentorship only when it’s needed or asked for,” he said.

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V Ramgopal Rao, Group Vice-Chancellor, BITS Pilani campuses, said mapping the state universities with central institutions was “a good step, NEP or no NEP” — as long as there was funding.

“To have such collaborations to promote a culture of excellence and multidisciplinarity is a good thing… Until now, there were no funding schemes for doing that; everything was looked at as social work, in which case nobody would do anything. But if there is a provision for them financially, if there are funded schemes for this, it is any day a good step,” he said.

The documents, however, do not indicate that any additional funding was announced for these collaborations.

Coming next: Is the Centre’s NEP digital push outpacing state capacity?