Reading the NEP 15: Money, Timelines and What You Can Do
English

In your college office there is probably
a proposal for new library books
that has come back
with these words stamped on it.
Approved, subject
to availability of funds.
Every plan in our college ends
with those words.
So who pays for the NEP,
and by when?
The policy's answer is in its last
three chapters, on pages 60 to 62,
and on page 60 it makes an admission.
Public expenditure on education
in India has not come close
to the recommended level
of 6 per cent of GDP.
Chapter 25 asks for a stronger
Central Advisory Board of Education,
a forum for consultation
that is to keep revising
the country's vision of education.
It also says it is desirable to rename
the ministry as the Ministry of Education.
The 6 per cent goes back
to the policy of 1968,
and was repeated in 1986 and 1992.
The policy's own figure,
for 2017–18,
is about 4.43 per cent.
The Centre and the states, it says,
are to raise public spending on education
to 6 per cent of GDP at the earliest.
It gives no year.
Six per cent.
That promise is older than I am.
Among the things the money is for,
the policy names enough teachers
and staff.
Of its eight long-term priorities,
four are for early childhood and schools.
The other four are teacher education,
colleges and universities,
research, and technology.
It says that even the low level
of funding is often not spent on time.
Public institutions may raise
philanthropic funds over
and above their public budget,
and higher cost recovery
is to be explored,
without affecting the needy.
Cost recovery.
Does that mean fees?
The paragraph does not define it.
Where the policy deals with fees,
in private institutions,
it asks for an upper limit
and no arbitrary rise
while a student is enrolled.
That is where it speaks
of a reasonable recovery of cost.
Chapter 27 sets out how to do it:
in phases, urgent things first,
and in full.
Because education is a concurrent subject,
the Centre
and the states are to plan it together
and send the money on time.
Teams of the Centre
and the states are to review progress
every year, and share the reviews
with the advisory board.
In the decade from 2030 to 2040
the whole policy is to be in operation,
and then it is to be reviewed again.
Six years have gone.
What has actually been done?
As of October 2026,
some of it is in place.
The ministry took its new name in 2020.
The credit bank has had UGC regulations
since 2021,
and the degree
with exit points since 2025.
Some is partly in place.
The latest official survey puts
the enrolment ratio at 30 per cent,
for 2023–24,
against a target of 50 by 2035.
In July 2026
the Union government told Parliament
that 20 of the 46 central universities
had no fourth-year batch yet.
In those that had one,
more than 47,600 students chose
to leave with a three-year degree.
The research foundation became law
in 2023,
and its own first two
budgets went unspent.
Some is still to come.
The single regulator is still
a Bill before Parliament.
Public spending
on education is about 4.1 per cent of GDP,
for 2022–23.
And Parliament's standing committee
on education noted in June 2026
that the advisory board last met in 2019.
So is it behind schedule?
The policy's own dates
for higher education run from 2025,
which has passed,
to 2040, and the 6 per cent has none.
For 2026–27, the education ministry's
budget is 14 per cent above
the revised figure for 2025–26.
Then who is meant to pay?
The Centre, the states,
or my students?
Brajesh Kumar Tiwari, who teaches
at Jawaharlal Nehru University,
wrote in July 2026
that India has built the roadmap.
Enrolment has reached 4.5 crore students,
he noted,
and 170 universities have adopted
the national credit framework.
Public money, he wrote,
must now reach classrooms,
laboratories and libraries,
through state plans
with budgets and timelines.
Furqan Qamar, a former education adviser
to the Planning Commission,
wrote in September 2026
that public spending has stayed flat
as a share of GDP.
Reaching 50 per cent enrolment means
about 3.5 crore more students,
while support per student barely holds
its value.
Expansion without matching money,
he argued,
does not produce more educated citizens.
The Centre's and each state's spending,
year by year,
would settle part of this.
So would each university's income
from grants, loans and fees.
Budgets are settled far
from my staff room.
What is left for one teacher?
Ask which document a circular stands on.
If a new fee arrives as per NEP,
ask which regulation, state order
or university ordinance sets it.
Read the paragraphs themselves.
Chapters 25 to 27 take about ten minutes.
Then keep your own record: each year,
a Hindi teacher in a state
university can note posts filled,
fourth-year students
and credits transferred.
And use
what the text already promises you.
Chapter 13 gives faculty
the freedom to choose readings,
assignments and assessments,
within the approved framework.
That costs nothing: a nursing teacher
can redesign one assignment this term.
I have read all 66 pages now.
Our new fee circular says as per NEP,
and tomorrow I am asking
which document it stands on.
Then you know what to read next.
The full text
and our sources are linked below.
This was Reading the NEP,
66 pages and what has become of them,
as of October 2026.
Thank you for reading them with us.