Can New Education Policy 2020 Serve as a Paradigm Shift to the Employability Gap in India?

Abstract

Employment and employability have lately surfaced as a significant concern for India that stands as the world's second central higher education system. The post-COVID-19 era further demanded a comprehensive policy at the national level. The Indian government approved the new education policy (NEP), bringing changes to higher education in the country on 29th July 2020. After an exhaustive reading of all education policies published in Indian literature, the authors present this viewpoint chapter, contributing to the extant literature on education policies in the following three ways. The first purpose is to evaluate and compare the current NEP 2020 to the last two educational policies of 1968 and 1986 to understand how far each policy could realize the goal of employability. The second purpose is to adumbrate the gaps between industry and academia in the proposed NEP 2020 to propose some transformative steps to fill the outlined gap. Thirdly, the main findings are depicted through a graphical representation to give some directions for future policy and research in employability.