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........

© Greater Kashmir