Higher Education Reforms Under NEP 2020: ABC, ANRF, and the HECI Question
While school-level reforms under NEP 2020 tend to get the most public attention — new structures, new textbooks, new report cards — the policy’s higher education agenda is arguably just as ambitious. Five-plus years in, some of these reforms are running well ahead of expectations, while one of the most important ones remains stuck on paper.
What’s Actually Working
Academic Bank of Credits (ABC). This is one of NEP’s genuinely operational successes. The ABC allows students to accumulate academic credits across institutions and time, store them digitally, and transfer or redeem them later — supporting NEP’s broader goal of flexible, multiple-entry, multiple-exit higher education instead of a rigid, one-path degree. Well over 600 universities are now part of this system.
Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF). Established through an Act of Parliament in 2023, ANRF replaced the earlier Science and Engineering Research Board as India’s apex research funding body. With an outlay of roughly ₹50,000 crore over five years, it has already funded well over a thousand research projects across universities and institutions — a genuinely significant expansion of India’s research funding architecture.
Common University Entrance Test (CUET). Now in its sixth edition, CUET has become the standard entry route into central and many state universities, drawing well over twenty-five lakh applicants — a major shift toward a single, standardised entrance process instead of each university running its own admission exam.
Foreign universities in India. Under new UGC regulations, a small number of foreign university campuses are now operational in India, including branches of the University of Southampton and Deakin University. This is a notable first step toward NEP’s goal of making India a global education hub rather than only a source of students studying abroad.
What Hasn’t Materialised
The Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). This was meant to be NEP’s centrepiece higher-education reform — a single regulatory body replacing the fragmented system of UGC, AICTE, NCTE, and various professional councils. As of now, the HECI Bill has not been enacted; a version introduced in Parliament lapsed without passage. The UGC and other existing regulators continue functioning as before, which means one of NEP’s most structurally important reforms remains a policy objective rather than a legislative reality.
Why the Gap Matters
This split — strong progress on programmatic reforms like ABC, ANRF, and CUET, versus stalled progress on institutional/regulatory reform like HECI — is a useful lens for understanding NEP implementation generally. Reforms that a ministry or existing body can implement through regulation tend to move faster. Reforms that require new legislation, cutting across existing institutional turf, move much more slowly, especially when they touch politically sensitive questions about central versus state authority over education.
What This Means Looking Forward
For students and families, the practical reforms — credit flexibility, a single entrance exam, expanding research funding — are already changing how higher education works in India. The bigger structural question of who regulates it all remains unresolved, and probably will for some time. It’s a reminder that policy documents move faster than the legislative and institutional machinery needed to fully realise them.