Autar Nehru
Following Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation as Union Education Minister after the NEET controversy in July this year, questions have been raised about whether his replacement, Pralhad Joshi, represents a downgrade. Critics have described Joshi as a part-time minister, adding to the unease over the government’s priorities for education. This perception is reinforced by leadership vacuums at some of the country’s most important education regulators, several of which are operating under temporary leadership arrangements.
The larger question for the Modi government is whether India’s education system is being strengthened sufficiently to ensure that quality education can support the country’s ambitious journey towards Viksit Bharat over the next two decades.
The government has repeatedly spoken of transforming India into a knowledge economy and a global education destination. Such aspirations require sustained investment in people and institutions, not merely policy restructuring. The expansion of universities, academic programmes and digital infrastructure must be matched by improvements in quality, accessibility and public accountability. This is possible only when the education delivery and governance ecosystem move beyond government announcements and becomes genuinely people-centric.
The University Grants Commission (UGC), the apex body responsible for maintaining standards in higher education, has been without a regularly appointed chairperson. The post has remained unfilled since Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar’s tenure ended on April 7, 2025. The Vice-Chairperson’s post is also vacant. The present arrangement, under which the Higher Education Secretary holds the chairperson’s position as an additional charge, has raised questions about the autonomy of a statutory regulator whose governing law envisages a chairperson who is not a serving government officer.
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) presents another troubling example. Since December 2025, its chairperson’s responsibilities have been entrusted to Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Yogesh Singh as additional charge. More seriously, the AICTE’s 51-member apex council reportedly ceased to function after its term expired in October 2024, while its Executive Committee also completed its tenure. A regulator responsible for prescribing norms, standards and approvals for thousands of technical institutions has thus been reported to be taking decisions without its full statutory council in place.
The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts some of the country’s most consequential entrance examinations, also has a leadership gap at the governing-body level. Its official website lists the post of governing-body chairperson as vacant. This is not a minor administrative omission. The governing body is entrusted with the agency’s overall administration and policy direction, while the Director General is responsible for its executive functioning.
The issue is particularly consequential given the examination failures and controversies that have dogged the agency. A parliamentary committee reportedly questioned the government’s delay in appointing a regular Director General after the 2024 NEET controversy. Abhishek Singh was eventually appointed regular DG with effect from April 1, 2026. Yet the separate vacancy in the governing body’s top position remains visible on the NTA website. The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), too, lists its chairman as holding additional charge.
These vacancies raise serious questions about continuity, institutional accountability, the quality of regulatory deliberations and the independence of bodies entrusted with overseeing India’s education system. Any government that places education reform at the centre of its national development ambitions must ensure that the institutions responsible for implementing and regulating those reforms have full-time leadership and functioning statutory governing structures. Their absence raises a fundamental question: what explains the growing culture of ad hoc arrangements in India’s education system?
Education delivery and reform require strong institutions, transparent appointments, independent regulators and stable governance. A system increasingly run through additional charges and prolonged vacancies risks normalising institutional weakness. That could prove a costly mistake in the long run.
India cannot become a global knowledge power merely by establishing more universities, introducing digital platforms, revising curricula or announcing new educational frameworks. It needs accessible universities, independent academic institutions, reliable examinations and a research ecosystem that encourages questioning, critical thinking and innovation.
Concerns about academic freedom, university autonomy and the examination-management crisis also demand closer scrutiny. The Freedom House 2026 country report describes academic freedom in India as significantly weakened, citing intimidation of academics, pressure over politically sensitive subjects and campus violence. Among the concerns raised in such assessments are the appointment of vice-chancellors and institutional heads; alleged political interference in university administration; disciplinary action against students and faculty; restrictions on seminars, books and research; the handling of student protests; and the role of student political organisations on campuses.
On schools front, India’s government-school system, meanwhile, remains the principal educational lifeline for millions of children, particularly those from economically weaker households, rural communities and socially disadvantaged groups. According to PRS Legislative Research’s Demand for Grants 2026–27: Education analysis, 49% of children were enrolled in government schools in 2024–25, while another 10% attended government-aided schools. The same analysis cites a 2021 NITI Aayog report stating that 36% of government schools in India had fewer than 50 students and only one or two teachers.
These figures should be sufficient to stimulate a serious and progressive debate on the condition of government schools and how to make them functional for the future of school education. If the National Education Policy (NEP) is intended to improve flexibility, quality, access and global competitiveness, the persistent gap between policy ambition and educational realities raises important questions about the direction and effectiveness of the government’s approach.
The central concern is whether the public education system is being strengthened enough to ensure that access to quality education does not become increasingly dependent on a family’s ability to pay. Strengthening public schooling must be a national priority, not a peripheral concern in the larger reform agenda.
Ultimately, the performance of a government on education should not be measured by the number of policies it announces or institutions it establishes. It should be measured by what happens to a child entering a government primary school, a first-generation learner attending a rural college, a student preparing for a competitive examination, and a young researcher seeking to pursue independent academic work.
The failure to meet the longstanding target of public expenditure on education equivalent to 6% of GDP, uneven implementation of the NEP, controversies over textbook revisions, concerns about academic freedom, disputes over university autonomy and recurring examination-management failures all demand closer scrutiny. These are not isolated administrative shortcomings; together, they raise questions about the coherence, capacity and priorities of the country’s education governance system.
National Education Day should therefore be more than a ceremonial celebration of past achievements and future promises. It should be an occasion to ask whether the foundations of India’s education system are being strengthened to meet the demands of the future.
