Why the real challenge after NEP 2020 is transforming classrooms, the assessment in examinations and employment.
Dr. Ashraf Zainabi
Every education policy promises change. Few change the classroom.Six years after the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 set out an ambitious roadmap for Indian higher education, universities have become familiar with new terms, multidisciplinary learning, academic flexibility, multiple entry and exit, skill development, and innovation under the new formula popularly known as design your own degree (DYoD). Yet an uncomfortable question remains, how much of this vocabulary has altered the daily experience of students sitting in classrooms?
The answer will determine whether NEP 2020 becomes a genuine educational revolution or simply another well-intentioned reform.That question acquired renewed relevance during the two-day National Conference on Innovative Pedagogies for Future-Ready Higher Education, organised by the Design Innovation Centre at the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST), Awantipora. Unlike many academic conferences that end with routine declarations, this one revolved around a practical concern, what must teachers and universities do differently if graduates are to thrive in an age shaped by artificial intelligence, climate uncertainty and rapidly changing workplaces?
The discussions pointed towards an obvious but often neglected truth. Higher education cannot prepare students for tomorrow by relying on yesterday’s methods.For decades, Indian universities have largely measured academic success through examinations that reward memory. Students master notes, reproduce them during examinations and move on to the next semester. Many graduate with impressive marks but limited confidence in tackling unfamiliar problems. Employers have said this for years. Increasingly, graduates admit it themselves.The gap between education and employability is not simply a gap in skills. It is often a gap in the way learning is organised.
At IUST, much of the conversation centred on reversing this pattern. The emphasis was not on abandoning academic rigour but on changing the learning process itself. Instead of treating students as passive recipients of information, the proposed approach expects them to investigate, question, design, collaborate and reflect. Knowledge remains important, but knowledge alone is no longer sufficient.
One moment during the conference captured this shift particularly well. Participants watched a documentary on the University’s Heritage Journey, an initiative under the design your own degree programme. Students had stepped outside conventional classrooms to engage with Kashmir’s historical sites, communities and cultural landscapes. The exercise was not tourism packaged as education. It was education rooted in place. History was learned by walking through it. Heritage became a source of inquiry rather than a chapter in a textbook.The idea deserves attention because it illustrates what experiential learning actually looks like. Across India, universities often invoke the phrase, but practical examples remain limited. Here, learning moved beyond lecture halls into real settings where observation, documentation and reflection became part of assessment.
Kashmir, in fact, offers an extraordinary classroom.Its wetlands can support research on climate adaptation. Traditional crafts can introduce students to sustainable livelihoods and design innovation. Mountain ecosystems can become laboratories for environmental science. Rural communities can help students understand entrepreneurship, public health and social policy. Every district possesses resources that can enrich university education if institutions choose to look beyond campus walls.
Artificial intelligence inevitably occupied a prominent place in the discussions. Predictably, opinions outside academia often swing between two extremes. One imagines AI replacing teachers altogether; the other dismisses it as a passing technological fad. Neither position is convincing.The more balanced view emerging from the conference was that AI should assist learning, not define it.
If software can generate essays, solve equations and summarise research papers within seconds, universities must ask what remains uniquely human.
“While Jammu & Kashmir’s “Design Your Own Degree” initiative is a promising step for classroom innovation, its ultimate success depends on job markets and universities shifting their hiring focus away from traditional metrics like high grades, test scores, and long CVs.”
The answer lies in judgment, ethics, curiosity, empathy and imagination. These qualities develop through discussion, disagreement, experimentation and experience, not through downloading information. This also changes the teacher’s role.The teacher who spends an hour dictating notes may soon become less relevant than the mentor who helps students frame better questions, evaluate evidence and connect ideas across disciplines. Good teaching will increasingly depend not on how much information an educator possesses but on how effectively that educator enables others to learn.Such expectations, however, cannot be imposed overnight.Faculty members need sustained opportunities to experiment with new teaching methods, redesign courses and rethink assessment. Educational reform often assumes that teachers will automatically adapt to every new policy. Experience suggests otherwise. Like students, teachers require institutional support, time and professional development if innovation is to become routine rather than exceptional.
Assessment deserves equal scrutiny. Universities continue to speak the language of creativity while frequently examining students through systems that reward predictable answers. This contradiction weakens every reform effort. If originality is expected, originality must also be evaluated. The student poster presentations offered a glimpse of what becomes possible when learners receive that opportunity. Young participants presented work ranging from healthcare and cybersecurity to artificial intelligence, sustainability and cultural heritage. More important than the topics themselves was the confidence with which students defended their ideas before experienced academicians. Learning had become visible, not through examination marks but through dialogue.That may be the most enduring lesson from the conference.
Universities should not merely certify that students have completed courses. They should create conditions where students are confident enough to ask difficult questions, defend evidence, revise their assumptions and develop solutions that matter beyond the campus. The design your own degree initiative represents one attempt to move in that direction. Whether it ultimately becomes a national model remains to be seen. Every educational innovation should be judged not by the enthusiasm surrounding its launch but by the quality of graduates it produces five or ten years later. The questions like, have students become better problem-solvers? Are they more employable? Do they demonstrate stronger research skills, greater social responsibility and deeper intellectual curiosity? These are the questions that should define the next phase of NEP implementation.
Higher education policy has travelled a considerable distance since 2020. The next journey is more demanding because it requires changing habits rather than regulations. Buildings can be constructed within months. Curricula can be revised within a year. But transforming classroom culture takes patience, leadership and persistence. The conference at IUST offered no magic formula, nor did it pretend to. Its real contribution lay in shifting attention from policy documents to everyday teaching. That is where educational reform either succeeds or quietly fades into another chapter of administrative history. India’s universities stand at an important crossroads. They can continue producing graduates who know the right answers to yesterday’s questions, or they can nurture graduates capable of asking the right questions for tomorrow.The choice is no longer about curriculum alone. It is about the future of learning itself.
Tailpiece: While the introduction and expansion of the Design Your Own Degree initiative across Jammu & Kashmir are encouraging, its real test lies ahead. If employers, including universities themselves, continue rewarding only high grades in UG and PG, competitive scores, and lengthy CVs, innovative pedagogy may change classrooms without changing the outcomes that truly matter.
(The author is a teacher at Design Innovation Centre, IUST Awantipora. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”)
