Digital Education News | Expert Analysis and Commentary - Edinbox Editorial

The long-running debate over India’s entrance examination system appears to be reaching a decisive turning point. The central government’s proposed SAT-based admission model is not just a move towards phasing out major national-level exams like NEET, JEE, and CUET—it is an attempt to reshape the entire education ecosystem under a new framework. If implemented, this could be considered the biggest reform in Indian higher education in decades.

The goal of this new system is pretty straightforward: to lessen student stress, limit the coaching culture dependency, and bring school education back to the main focus. This method is in line with the essence of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which has always highlighted school- based assessment and conceptual learning.

Will This Model Alleviate Student Burden?

Scheduling the SAT twice in the Class 11 proposal seems like a fair compromise. Besides one more chance to better their scores, students, when their Class 12 board results are combined, could see the admission process gradually becoming more integrated, transparent, and school centric.

In the past, the whole pressure of competitive examinations has been on after Class 12. By distributing this burden over two years, the new system could significantly reduce mental stress among students.

Can the Coaching Culture Really Be Curbed?

India's coaching industry has practically evolved into an education system parallel to the formal one. Kota and Hyderabad, Delhi, and Patna are cities that draw hundreds of thousands of students every year.

Higher stress, financial issues, and the steady stream of news about student suicides have regularly exposed the flaws of this system

Measures in the new framework like cutting down coaching hours, not allowing students under 16 years to attend, and school related exams can reduce the influence of coaching centres. Such a change would be welcomed by society and parents alike.

A Transformative Step for Rural and Marginalised Students

The biggest challenge in Indian education has always been equal opportunity. When coaching is expensive and access to big cities is limited, rural and economically weaker students are naturally left behind.

The new system could significantly narrow this gap. NCERT-based assessments, in-school preparation, and fair percentile-based allocation could make the admission process more inclusive.

Is Uniformity Across State Boards Possible?

This is perhaps the most critical challenge. India's state boards vary greatly in their syllabi, assessment patterns, and difficulty standards. In case the SAT syllabus is based on NCERT, state boards will need to overhaul their curricula to keep the students at the same level.

The change will be possible only if the states are empowered with a major role and given sufficient time to execute the plan.

What Do Experts Say?Many experts are of the opinion that this model can lighten the students' stress load, however, they also regard syllabus alignment as the biggest problem. They see it as a great chance for students from rural areas and tell teachers to start preparing for the change now.

Some educators feel the system could help end rote learning, but they also stress the importance of uniformity across state boards. In their view, this reform could improve mental health, offer financial relief, and enhance teaching quality.However, they also suggest pilot projects first to full, scale implementation.

Educators' optimistic responses notwithstanding, they also show that they are cautious about the challenges of execution.

The Bigger Picture

The main purpose of the new admission system is fundamentally good and it can bring about a number of benefits, such as student stress reduction, school education getting its due, and decreasing reliance on coaching institutes.

However, this change is far more than simply a matter of an examination, it demands a fundamental re-thinking of the way students are taught, how the teachers will be prepared, and the whole administrative machinery of education. The model will only be viable and sustainable if the government opts for the phased implementation, first through pilot projects, and later in partnership with the states.

The choice of 2027 as the deadline is certainly a bold move, however, it could very well be the beginning of a new era for the Indian education system.

When scientists first saw a Platypus in 1799, they named it a hoax. Duck bill on a beaver body with venomous spurs? Absurd. Yet this evolutionary odd ball has survived 110 million years - through asteroid strikes and ice ages that killed giants. Secret? Perfect niche mastery. It preys when it's blind, by just using electroreceptors, swims where predators can't follow and combines reptile-mammal characteristics no one else has. That’s exactly what a small university dominating global rankings is– a Platypus.

Your small university or tier-2/tier-3 college in Lucknow, Coimbatore or Jaipur has similar skepticism. Less funding than IITs. Smaller faculty pools. No global brand. But the Platypus Effect is the proof of small wins through ruthless specialisation.

Global Rankings Don't Reward Size, They Reward These 5 Metrics

QS World University Rankings 2025 (1,500+ institutions): 40% academic reputation 20% citations per faculty 20% faculty-student ratio. Times Higher Education 2025: Teaching quality 29.5%, weight heavily on research impact. NIRF India 2025: Teaching resources (30 points), Research Productivity (30 points), Graduate outcomes (20 points).

So, how do small universities climb the rankings in the world? The truth is that all three measure current output and not historical prestige or what your university has achieved earlier. NIRF 2025 data shocked everyone because 42 Universities crashed India's top 100, mostly from ranks 51-200. A jump in score of 3.99 = 40 rank position gained. Small universities are faster when they work on focusing exactly like a platypus would usually do.

Small Universities Must Become a Platypus

We all know about Phineas and Ferbs, and you are surely aware of how their pet platypus kept being their lucky charm, right? Perry was a detective in the show who was thought to be a quiet animal but did things no one expected. That’s exactly what these creatures did in the real world! 

Have you ever thought how could this species defy the law of nature and survive? Experts believed these creatures couldn’t last longer in this evolving world but Platypus Perry is a dopey looking pet that somehow outsmarts supervillains every day. Tier-2/3 colleges have Perry's agility advantage. You teach 80% of India's graduates in cities building real infrastructure and resources in defense, agriculture, manufacturing, not just Bengaluru’s IT unicorns.

UPES has climbed 250 QS positions owning energy engineering. Graphic Era University specialized in niches of hill states of tech. Madan Mohan Malaviya University (Gorakhpur) leaped NIRF bands by focused research. These aren't flukes, they're Platypus Effect Execution. 

How Can a University Improve its Ranking: 5-Steps to Take

Instead of accepting your fate of being an autonomous or local university and googling things like “how small can a university be,” start acting like a platypus and gradually become Perry the Platyus defying all the perceptions of growth, and achieve global recognition.  It is not an impossible task; you need to take just 5 fundamental steps:

1.  Pick Your Driver (Niche Dominance That Crushes Giants)

Forget about copying IIT curriculums. Search "university niche specialization success" - same story everywhere. Rural university? Own agri-biotech where there is no elite to bother? Industrial city? Rule advanced manufacturing. Tier-2 tech hub? Fintech, drones, cyber security.

UPES proves the math: Target 5 publications per department annually in your niche. Launch 1-2 research centers. Citations are on balloons within 18 months, pulling all the ranking metrics up. Giants spread thin across 50 disciplines. You go deep in 3-5 where you can actually win. This isn't theory, it's how small universities actually beat others in world rankings.

1. Smart Global Moves (International Clout Without Millions)

QS/THE international outlook = 10% of score. You beat lumbering giants here.

How? 

1. Email 10 professors worldwide doing adjacent niche work
2. Propose co-authored papers (they want Indian collaborators too)
3. Host 2-3 funded international PhDs in your research center
4. Your deal closes in 3 months. IITs take 2 years.

Result: International co-authorship metrics skyrocket across all systems

3. Faculty = Your Rocket Fuel (Research Productivity Blueprint)

NIRF data: Phd faculty share jumped 28% (2017) to 48% (2025) in climbing universities. Small unis make rockstars faster than tier 1 inherits them.

Execute:

• Biweekly journal clubs (acquaint students with research talk)
• Conference travel grants ($1K/each moves metrics)
• Writing groups + editing support (most papers die here)
• Publication bonuses (25K/paper works)
• HODs: Start by your top 3 researchers. One department's progress drives the institution.

4. Graduate Outcomes: Your Invisible Weapon

All rankings obsess over placements. Recruiters ask "Can they deliver Day 1?" not "IIT or tier-3?" Your local advantage dominates here. Map district-level hiring needs. Secure 5-10 employer pipelines for live projects and internships. Track alumni 3 years out, publish their success stories aggressively. Tier-2 placement rates hit 60-70% through relationships, boosting NIRF graduation outcomes (20 points) dramatically. 

5. Data Dashboard or Die

Assign two staff to track monthly NIRF score calculators, QS citation trajectories, 3-year alumni employment rates, and international paper pipelines. Calculate your exact NIRF/QS/THE scores today. Set department targets. Conduct quarterly reviews. Cambridge University of Kashmir's 2025 plan proves this math works.

Will Local Universities Get Rankings Even If Gen Z Skips Daily College?

Ranking disregards the number of students in the classroom - they are pursuing what students attain after getting their degrees. The 20 point graduation outcomes section of NIRF addresses median salary, PHD admissions, and employer response 3 years later. The QS employer reputation surveys also place one question to the hiring managers, which is whether they would re-hire their graduates again. Halls of lectures that are empty do not enroll.

Years ago physical attendance as a measure was killed. The Choice-Based Credit System created by NAAC already includes the exposure hours in the industry, online modules, and capstone projects as equals to the classroom time. Your student of mechanical engineering in Coimbatore who spends his mornings at a local plant of TVS and afternoons writing automation systems That is all academic credit according to the 2023 rules.

There is a latent advantage to the tier-3 colleges. Students are local residents who have to commute over short distances and are employed on part-time basis by local employers. The B.Tech final-year student who was working night shifts with the district pharma unit as he studied theory online? NAAC gives those hours of practice 3 times the credits on outcome-based learning.

Reorganize Gen Z reality

Introduction of "Work-Learn Degrees" that will have students attending partner companies 60 percent of the time, and campus 40 percent of the time. Local steel mills, garment factories, automobile parts, they must have good juniors at once. One semester of actual productive line work is equal to three years of textbook knowledge on the scores of employer perception.

District-level hiring maps beat national placement cells.. The graduate of your local civil engineering school doing the bridges on the state PWD has exponentially more NIRF weight on him than an attendee at a daily meeting. VCs: recruit one placement officer that will be familiar with all the owners of the factories within 50km. Publicize alumni wages on a per company basis, rather than percentage basis. Earnings information is more reputable than attendance certificates.

Gen Z skipping routine classes hands you outcome-based ranking dominance. Everyday college was no longer possible because employers began recruiting through GitHub profiles and LinkedIn projects. Construct the system that rewards them on what they actually accomplish. Rankings are after graduate success stories and not roll call sheets. 

What Deans, HODs, VCs of Local Universities Need To Do For Dominating Rankings?

HODs begin with the department meeting at 9 AM. Assign clear paper quotas by discipline - Computer Science gets five Scopus papers this year, Biotech wants to have four Q1 journals. Schedule weekly biweekly research huddles in which faculty share paper drafts and receive immediate feedback. Before lunch: One targeted email to a professor overseas who is working on related research. One department doing so generates institutional momentum. NIRF research scores jump 15-20 points if faculty are serious about it.

Deans declare money for research seed funding Monday afternoon. Launch dashboards for citations, international work and alumni placements by department. Faculty growth trumps new buildings for QS, THE and NIRF rankings. Recruiters hire graduates that deliver rather than campus architecture.

VCs dedicate 5% of the operating budget to research operations immediately. Personal one international partnership calls your position an opening door. Celebrate first publications through public assemblies and press releases. Visible ranking improvements come in 24 months through execution, not aspiration. NIRF 2025 showed 42 universities got into the top 100 through focused action.

Rankings are for doers, not dreamers. HODs create momentum. Deans are engine builders of research. VCs deliver results. Small universities move upward by acting Monday morning.

How to Apply for World Rankings (As Small/Local University) (Do This NOW)

Stop waiting for "prestige." Rankings reward action. Download QS Stars rating system (perfect for small universities) - they rate niche excellence even if you're unranked. Submit THE Impact Rankings (1,500+ small universities qualify)—your agri-tech center scores high. NIRF registration opens up in March - upload teaching metrics, research output, even starting from zero. ARWU (Shanghai Rankings) accepts research-focused submissions using publication records only.

Week 1 action: Assign two staff to calculate some existing NIRF/QS scores using the public methodology documents. 

Week 2: Sign up for QS Stars + THE Impact. 

Week 3: Launch niche research center 5 paper target 

Small universities witness between 20 - 40 jumps in positions Year 2 when they treat rankings as operations not dreams. And universities searching "how small universities apply QS rankings," same steps are to be followed everywhere.

Your River Is Waiting, Dive-in Or Let Others Rule It

Gladwell proved that underdogs win 64% with adapted strategy. NIRF 2025's fastest climbers? Tier-2/3 universities. Nazarbayev University gained World Recognition from the same focus. 2025 saw small universities jump when they were focused. 2026 is execution time.

The Platypus Effect isn't theory. It's biology. It's rankings math. It's UPES jumping 250 QS positions. It's 42 NIRF universities are in the top 100.

Leaders googling “how small universities dominate global rankings” are seeking for hope and you are now holding the playbook. So, stop apologizing for being small or local. Rule your river. Execute without mercy. Rankings will follow! 

Rankings ke piche mt bhago, kabil bano aur rankings apke piche bhagengi! (Rancho, 3 idiots)

Walk into any Indian university today and you can sense two strong currents in the air. One is excitement. Artificial intelligence, automation and new digital tools are expanding what students can build, design and publish—often in weeks, not years. The other is anxiety. Job markets are uncertain, business cycles are unpredictable, and many roles are being redesigned faster than degrees can update themselves.

In that tension sits the most urgent question for higher education: what is a university preparing a student for, really? If the answer is only “a job,” the institution is already behind the curve. But if the answer is “a life of value creation under uncertainty,” then the university’s core mandate changes. It must teach people how to innovate—not occasionally, not as a hobby, and not only in engineering and management, but across disciplines and across the entire functioning of

the university.

That is why the idea of an “innovation university” matters. It is not a new centre with a new logo. It is a campus-wide operating system—leadership, culture, incentives, assessment, resources and partnerships—designed to make new ideas routine and execution normal.

From “Entrepreneurial University” to “Engaged University”: An Indian Upgrade

Globally, innovation in universities is often framed through the lens of commercialization: patents, licensing and high-tech spin-offs. That “entrepreneurial university” model has value, but in much of India the deeper opportunity lies elsewhere. The more relevant shift is toward an “engaged university”—one that still participates in economic growth, but stays rooted in regional problem-solving, sustainability and community partnership.

This is not a philosophical preference; it is a pragmatic reading of India’s innovation terrain. Many of the country’s most urgent innovation needs are not only breakthroughs in labs, but solutions that work at scale in real conditions—affordable healthcare delivery, climate resilience, learning outcomes, safety, skilling, MSME productivity, and governance services that reach the last mile.

In such contexts, universities can act as protected “shelters” where students, faculty, communities and NGOs co-create frugal and inclusive innovations—solutions designed to be affordable, adaptable and accessible.

When a university internalises this mission, it stops behaving like a “people factory” and starts behaving like an anchor institution: a reliable idea generator with the ability to change outcomes beyond the campus walls.

Innovation Is Not an Event. It Is a System.

Many campuses already host hackathons, startup weekends and innovation festivals. They create noise, photographs and short-term energy. But without a system, the energy dissipates after the event. The document you shared makes the central point clearly: innovation succeeds when universities build mutually reinforcing enablers, not isolated activities.

That is the logic behind the 10Square Model, which frames innovation culture as ten interacting levers that together turn a campus into a “cradle of new ventures.” The lesson is not to chase ten separate projects, but to design a connected ecosystem where one reform amplifies the next.

The Model for Future Universities

The model explicitly warns against checklist thinking: the power lies in systemic interaction. Consider one practical example from the same framework. Leadership may publicly encourage risk-taking, but that message remains rhetorical if assessment continues to reward only memory and compliance. The moment a university changes evaluation to give credit for prototypes, pitches and documented learning from failure, the culture becomes real.

In innovation, what gets measured gets done. Leadership: The First Campus Innovation Tool Innovation dies first in fear—fear of being judged, fear of failing, fear of “wasting time” on something that will not be graded. Your document makes a direct link between positive, participative leadership and the psychological safety that allows students and faculty to pursue bold ideas.

This is where many Indian institutions can act immediately without waiting for new buildings or large budgets. Leadership can normalise experimentation by making it visible and safe—by celebrating attempts, rewarding learning, and treating failure as data rather than disgrace.

Universities that do this are not lowering standards; they are changing the standard from “perfect answers” to “credible problem-solving.” 

Admissions and Branding: Recruit Innovators, Not Only Toppers

Most universities market programmes. Innovation universities market problems worth solving. That is a subtle but decisive shift in admissions and public communication. Instead of presenting only infrastructure and placements, campuses can showcase real challenges sourced from local industry, civic bodies, hospitals, schools and NGOs—then show how student teams worked on them.

This approach also changes admissions logic. An innovation-oriented admissions track can recognise portfolios, projects, hackathon participation, creative work and community problem-solving evidence—not as “extra-curricular,” but as valid indicators of future value creation.

Scholarships become a strategic tool in this ecosystem. The document highlights a reality that Indian families understand deeply: the biggest barrier to pursuing entrepreneurship is often financial risk. Targeted entrepreneurship scholarships create a “runway” that de-risks early venture work, while also providing “smart capital” through networks, mentorship and credibility.

Curriculum: Make Innovation a Graduate Attribute, Not an Elective

Most institutions treat innovation as a course students may opt into if they have spare time. The innovation university treats it as a graduate attribute—something every student should practise, regardless of discipline.

The practical implication is straightforward. Every programme can be designed with a staged innovation pathway: early grounding in innovation methods, then discipline-based studios, then live problem labs, and finally a capstone project that produces something tangible—a prototype, a policy design, a service redesign, a validated venture idea, or an impact solution with measurable outcomes.

Interdisciplinary design is non-negotiable. Breakthrough ideas often emerge at intersections, and structured cross-major challenges create stronger ventures and more adaptable innovators. India already has institutional references for how this can scale. University-linked incubators such as IIT Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) demonstrate what happens when research, mentoring and venture support sit close to the student

journey.

The point for other universities is not to copy an IIT model wholesale, but to replicate the principle: make pathways visible, support consistent, and outcomes count.

Pedagogy: Shift from “Coverage” to “Creation”

Innovation cannot be taught only through lectures. It is learned through building—by stepping into messy problems, listening to users, testing ideas, and iterating quickly. Your document uses a powerful phrase for this: “organic learning.” It describes a shift away from lecture-hall transmission toward experiential discovery, where students engage directly with complex, unstructured real-world problems and learn the foundational entrepreneurial act of identifying and understanding a problem worth solving.

This is particularly relevant for Indian campuses because it aligns naturally with the country’s real needs. A municipal ward, a district hospital, a government school cluster, an MSME association, a farmer collective, a tourism cluster, a women’s self-help group—each can

become a learning partner.

In such settings, students learn to operate under constraints, build frugal prototypes, and measure what actually changes. The broader claim in the document is that such learning environments stimulate autonomy, intrinsic motivation and diverse perspectives, which are key conditions for creativity. In other words, the pedagogy is not “practical training” in a narrow sense; it is a direct route to innovation capacity.

Evaluation: If You Grade Only Exams, You Will Get Only Exams

Assessment is where the university’s true priorities become visible. If exams dominate, innovation becomes extracurricular—even if the institution runs events and builds centres. Your document’s “Multi Assessment” approach argues for assessment methods that can capture dynamic skills like creativity, risk-taking and practical problem-solving, which traditional exams and essays measure poorly.

It recommends authentic assessment through realistic tasks such as investor pitches, marketing plans, working prototypes, portfolios, public demonstrations, and structured peer and self-assessment. The deeper point is cultural: when venture creation itself earns academic

credit, students understand that innovation is not a side hustle. It is legitimate academic work.

For Indian universities, this is one of the most direct levers to pull because it does not require permission from the future. It requires courage in the present: to redesign rubrics and to trust documented learning and real outcomes.

The Innovation Policy Tailwind Is Already Here

Indian higher education does not have to invent a policy justification for this shift. The National Innovation and Startup Policy 2019 is explicit about the gap: “innovation is still not the epicenter of education,” and HEIs must enable a cultural and attitudinal shift so that innovation and startup culture becomes a primary fulcrum of higher education.

Similarly, the Ministry of Education’s Institution’s Innovation Councils (IIC) framework spells out what many campuses need operationally: conduct innovation and entrepreneurship activities, identify and reward innovations, organise interactions with entrepreneurs and investors, and create mentor pools for student innovators.

In other words, universities that move now are not acting “outside the system.” They are acting in alignment with the direction the system is already encouraging.

Technology and the Digital Campus: The “Central Nervous System” of Innovation

The innovation university is not only about new courses. It is also about the infrastructure of collaboration. Your document describes technology integration as the “central nervous system” of a scalable ecosystem—enabling virtual incubators, collaboration tools and modern venture development. This matters because innovation is team sport. Students need shared workspaces, version control for ideas, rapid feedback loops, access to digital resources, and platforms that connect them to mentors and industry. When digital systems are absent or fragmented, innovation becomes slow and elite. When they are available, innovation becomes routine and inclusive.

Campus Operations as a Living Lab: Innovation That Starts at Home

A university that wants an innovation culture cannot run its own operations like a bureaucracy. The campus itself can become a living lab—especially through sustainability and service redesign.

The document points to green infrastructure as a pathway to turn campuses into living laboratories—renewables, circular waste systems, biodiversity and measurable resource efficiency—while inspiring eco-preneurship. It also suggests “innovation operations projects” where student teams improve energy, water, waste, transport, queue systems, library usage, alumni engagement and grievance redressal, with improvements measured and iterated.

This is a powerful cultural signal. When students see their university practising innovation in its own daily functioning, they stop treating innovation as theatre and start treating it as normal work.

Linking Learners to Economy and Society: The Innovation Corridor

The engaged university’s ambition is to connect learning with the economy and society in sustained ways. The document describes this as building an “innovation corridor” through problem-solving internships, MSME clinics run by faculty-student teams, co-created projects with NGOs and government departments, and pipelines that connect prototypes to incubators, investors and markets.

India’s strongest campus ecosystems show what happens when this corridor becomes an institutional habit. IIT Madras, for instance, announced in December 2025 that its incubation cell had incubated 511 startups, crossing the 500 milestone with a combined valuation of over ₹53,000 crore and more than 11,000 direct jobs, illustrating the economic impact of sustained support structures. At IIT Bombay, SINE launched an incubator-linked deep-tech VC fund in December 2025, explicitly designed to provide early-stage risk capital to deep-tech startups emerging from academic and research institutions.

These examples are not meant to intimidate non-IIT campuses. They are meant to clarify the mechanism: consistent mentoring, structured pathways, supportive policy, and credible financing options turn student ambition into durable outcomes.

A Final Word: The Campus Must Change Before the World Forces It To

The heart of the argument in your document is simple and hard to ignore: innovation is not a festival. It is a habit. And habits are built through what a campus rewards daily—what it teaches, how it evaluates, how it mentors, how it funds risk, and how it connects students to real problems in society.

India’s universities can either remain reactive, updating courses after industries have already moved on, or they can become the country’s most reliable “future factory,” where every learner learns to build, test, rethink and deliver value. The institutions that make this shift will not only improve placements. They will produce citizens and professionals who can design solutions under uncertainty, create enterprises and services, strengthen communities, and make the economy more resilient. In a time when change is constant and certainty is rare, that may be the

most practical definition of education itself.

The author is the Chief Mentor of Edinbox and works as a Director with the Techno India group of Kolkata, along with being the Principal Adviser of the Kolkata based university of the group.

India’s campuses are expanding faster than the promise of stable, meaningful work. Degrees are multiplying, aspirations are rising, and yet the ladder into “viable jobs” is not growing at the same rate. Official estimates have placed the unemployment rate for youth aged 15–29 years at 10.2% in 2023–24, a reminder that the transition from education to employment remains uncertain for a large section of young Indians. Global assessments on India’s youth employment situation also underline the scale of the challenge and the need for better education-to-work pathways.

In this environment, entrepreneurship cannot be treated as a hobby for a few business-school students with family backing. It has to become a campus-wide way of learning—an applied, practical literacy that any student can pick up, regardless of discipline. The real value is not only in producing founders. It is in producing graduates who can spot problems, build solutions, test them with real users, price them responsibly, sell ethically, manage cash flows, hire teams, and scale what works—or shut it down intelligently and learn. This is the new baseline.

That is also the direction of national intent. India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 explicitly pushes higher education institutions towards research and innovation through start-up incubation centres, technology development centres, and stronger industry linkages. The Ministry of Education’s National Innovation and Startup Policy (2019) goes further, outlining how institutions should structure governance, infrastructure, intellectual property practices, and startup support as a system rather than a one-off initiative. 

But policy text does not automatically become campus culture. What converts intent into outcomes is an operating model: leadership that signals permission to try, pedagogy that rewards building, and infrastructure that reduces early risk. The attached document argues for exactly this shift—moving from occasional entrepreneurship events to an integrated campus design that reliably produces new ventures and problem-solvers.

Entrepreneurship must stop living inside one department

Most universities still treat entrepreneurship as if it belongs to management education. The result is predictable: students in law, media, design, agriculture, humanities, and the pure sciences either stay out or feel they do not “qualify” to build ventures. Yet the next wave of

Indian entrepreneurship is unlikely to be only tech startups. It will be a mix of sustainability businesses, local services, value-added agriculture, affordable healthcare solutions, creative economy ventures, education innovation, rural platforms, and compliance and logistics

services—domains where non-business students are often closer to the real problem.

The easiest reform is structural: entrepreneurship pathways must be visible to every student. This means entrepreneurship minors that cut across departments, credit-bearing venture projects that count toward graduation, and problem-solving studios where students learn to build solutions rather than write only examinations. A final-year venture project, properly supervised, can replace the traditional “project report” with something far more employable: a prototype, customer validation, early revenue, and a credible narrative of learning.

This is where global precedents matter, not as aspirational name- dropping but as proof of method. In places like MIT and Stanford, entrepreneurship is not a single course. It is a culture supported by multiple centres, programs, and long-term networks. Indian universities do not need to copy that scale immediately, but they do need to adopt the underlying idea: entrepreneurship must be normal on campus, not exotic.

The pedagogy that works begins outside the classroom

Entrepreneurship is rarely learned through lectures alone. Students need ambiguity. They need field exposure. They need to attempt, fail, modify, and try again. The attached framework emphasizes “learning by building” as the default mode—problem-based learning where students

engage with real communities, institutions, and markets and then shape solutions through iteration.

Consider how different campus life becomes when a semester is organised around one neighbourhood or one district problem. A student team might work on waste segregation and discover that behaviour change is harder than technology. Another team might attempt a mobility solution and realise that operations and partnerships matter more than an app. A health innovation team might learn, within weeks, that trust and affordability are their first barriers, not engineering.

This is also where the idea of the “engaged university” becomes powerful, particularly for India and the broader Global South: universities cannot only chase commercialisation in the narrow sense; they must also build mission-driven innovations that solve social and environmental problems through local partnerships.

That approach is not charity. It is strategic, because India’s future venture opportunities will increasingly sit inside sustainability, inclusion, and public problem-solving.

An incubator is not a room; it is a repeatable system

Many campuses announce incubation centres with a ribbon-cutting, and then the room remains underused. The reason is simple: incubation is not furniture. It is a pipeline and a system. A functional entrepreneurship ecosystem includes pre-incubation for idea discovery, mentor networks, IP and legal support, prototyping facilities, seed grants, investor access, alumni support, and clear institutional policies.

India has strong examples of what “system” looks like. IIT Madras Incubation Cell, for instance, reported crossing the 500-startup milestone and has stated that it has incubated 511 startups with significant valuation and job creation figures, alongside a steady annual pipeline in FY 2024–25. This did not happen because one building was inaugurated. It happened because the ecosystem was built to run continuously: screening, mentoring, deep-tech support, and structured pathways to market.

IIT Bombay’s SINE offers another signal of maturity. In December 2025, IIT Bombay reported that SINE launched an incubator-linked deep tech VC fund (₹250 crore) to back early-stage deep-tech startups—an example of how campus incubation is moving into serious capital and commercialisation pathways. At IIM Ahmedabad, the entrepreneurship continuum (IIMA Ventures, formerly IIMA-CIIE) explicitly positions itself as a system that studies, educates, incubates, accelerates, and invests. At IIM Bangalore, NSRCEL has built a visible national brand in incubation and structured entrepreneurship programs, signalling how management institutions can anchor ecosystems that serve students and the broader society.

The point is not that every university must become an IIT or an IIM. The point is that every university can become a reliable entrepreneurship platform if it designs for repeatability rather than events. 

Use what already exists: IIC and AIM are national scaffolding 

A common mistake is to assume that each institution must build everything from scratch. India has already created national scaffolding that campuses can leverage quickly. The Ministry of Education’s Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC) program, for example, is designed to conduct innovation, IPR, and entrepreneurship-related activities in a time-bound fashion, reward innovations, host workshops and interactions with entrepreneurs and investors, and build mentor pools and networks. When used seriously, IIC can become the campus operating system for innovation calendars rather than a compliance checkbox.

Similarly, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has built the Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) network, and AIM itself reports scale indicators including the number of AICs and startups supported. For universities that are still building internal incubation capacity, partnering with nearby AICs is a practical bridge—especially for specialised lab access, early mentoring, and network credibility.

The national startup policy (2019) strengthens this message by framing entrepreneurship as an institutional responsibility, including governance structures, IP ownership, licensing, and equity-sharing mechanisms. Universities that implement these systems do not merely produce startup “stories.” They produce a steady pipeline of ventures, internships, live projects, and industry collaborations.

The invisible factor: psychological safety and leadership permission

Even with infrastructure, most students hesitate because entrepreneurship feels socially risky. They fear embarrassment, academic penalties, and the suspicion that entrepreneurship is a distraction from “real” education.

This is why the leadership signal matters. The attached framework argues for positive leadership as a core ingredient: university leaders must create psychological safety for risk-taking and make intelligent failure respectable.

In practical terms, this can mean flexible attendance and evaluation policies for active founders, formal leave-of-absence options that allow students to build ventures without losing their academic future, and public celebrations of attempts, not only of winners.

When leadership explicitly says, “Try,” student participation rises. When leadership says, “Only placements matter,” entrepreneurship becomes theatre. 

Teach the craft, not only the motivation 

Many campuses run inspirational talks, pitch competitions, and startup weekends. These create energy. But energy alone does not build companies. What builds companies is craft.

Students need structured, step-by-step capability: customer discovery, market validation, pricing, sales, unit economics, compliance, contracts, hiring, and team leadership. The attached model emphasises skills training as a direct driver of entrepreneurial confidence and competence.

It also points to blended learning as the right delivery mode, because founders cannot always attend conventional schedules and because entrepreneurship knowledge is often best learned in short, tool-based modules. When universities deliver micro-credentials in these areas, hosted on the LMS and supported by hybrid mentoring, they make entrepreneurship learning accessible at scale. The output is not only startups; it is also better employability, because students learn how markets work in real time.

Change assessment, and students will change behaviour

Universities often say they value innovation, but they still grade students primarily through memory-based exams. That mismatch kills entrepreneurship learning. A serious reform is to change assessment design. The framework in the attached document calls for multi-assessment—grading authentic outputs like prototypes, portfolios, demonstrations, investor-style pitches, peer feedback, and iteration discipline.

When a demo day replaces an end-term exam in one course, the classroom becomes a studio. When students get academic credit for incubation milestones, they can justify venture-building time to families and peers.

This matters enormously in India, where social expectations around education are high and “wasting time” is a real fear. Reduce early risk: scholarships and micro-grants are not charity

For many students, the barrier is not ideas. It is the cost of risk. Even modest support can change outcomes because it buys time for validation and prototyping. The attached model treats scholarships and micro-grants as key enablers because they de-risk early exploration and validate entrepreneurial talent.

On campus, this can be structured as milestone-based prototype grants, founder scholarships that combine tuition support with mentoring obligations, and alumni-funded “student angel circles” that make the first cheque feel possible. The strongest versions of these programs are not open-ended. They are disciplined: small funding, clear deliverables, rigorous review, and strong mentoring.

Sustainability is not a side theme; it is a venture frontier

If universities want entrepreneurship to be relevant to India’s next decade, they should look closely at sustainability. Energy, water, waste, mobility, livelihoods, and climate-resilient infrastructure are not only public policy topics; they are business opportunities.

A powerful idea in the attached framework is “green infrastructure” as a campus lever: when a campus becomes a living lab—renewable energy monitoring, circular waste systems, water auditing, sustainable procurement—students get a real-world testbed for green ventures.

The university becomes the first customer, the first dataset, and the first validation site. That is how sustainable entrepreneurship becomes practical rather than rhetorical.

Interdisciplinary teams are where the real startups are born

Most successful ventures sit at intersections. Technology without design fails. Design without distribution fails. Distribution without compliance fails. Compliance without product-market fit fails.

The attached framework highlights interdisciplinary collaboration as a structural driver of innovation.

Universities can operationalise this through cross-school challenge labs, mixed-team venture courses, shared co-working spaces, and joint teaching where faculty from business, engineering, humanities, and design co-own outcomes.

This approach also strengthens campus employability, because interdisciplinary teamwork is exactly what modern organisations demand.

Measure what matters, and tell a stronger story than rankings

A final weakness across many universities is measurement. Rankings rarely capture the full value of entrepreneurship, especially social entrepreneurship and community innovation. 

Campuses need their own dashboards: teams formed, prototypes built, ventures registered, revenue earned, jobs created, IP filed where relevant, grants won, follow- on funding secured, and measurable social or environmental outcomes. The attached model emphasises institutional “scaling up” through continuous improvement and outcome tracking, not through occasional publicity.

In a jobs-scarce era, the most credible university brand will be built not only on placement brochures, but on documented venture outcomes and community impact.

The editorial bottom line: the campus must become India’s most reliable launchpad

India does not need every student to become a founder. But India does need every graduate to become venture-capable, because the economy increasingly rewards those who can create value, not only those who can seek roles.

The path is visible. Policy frameworks exist. National scaffolding exists through IIC and AIM. Indian examples show what is possible when ecosystems are designed as systems rather than events. The remaining work is cultural and operational: to embed entrepreneurship in curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, leadership signals, and campus infrastructure so that it becomes routine.

When that happens, universities stop being waiting rooms for jobs and start becoming factories of solutions. In a country as young and ambitious as India, that is not an optional upgrade. It is the next definition of what a university is for.

The author is the Chief Mentor of Edinbox and works as a Director with the Techno India group of Kolkata, along with being the Principal Adviser of the Kolkata based university of the group.

Between reform momentum, trust deficit, and the race to stay relevant

As 2025 closes, Indian higher education looks bigger than ever—andmore uneasy than ever. Participation is rising, aspirations are rising faster, and the everyday “rules of the game” feel less predictable to students, teachers, and institutions. The system is being pushed to do several difficult things at once: redesign its regulatory architecture, restore confidence in accreditation after a credibility shock, respond to a jobs market being reshaped by AI, and compete globally for learners and faculty—while also navigating the hard realities of India’s federal politics.

What made the year feel different is that the big headlines were not about shiny new campuses or fashionable programmes. They were about governance and trust: a proposed super-regulator, new norms that could normalise contract teaching, an accreditation scandal that forced a pause and rule changes, and an internationalisation push that is ambitious in intent but still thin in early enrolment outcomes.

Scale is real. So is the anxiety about outcomes.

India’s higher education system is now among the world’s largest—and its scale is no longer the debate. The question that is getting sharper is what this scale delivers: do graduates leave with learning and credentials that translate into mobility—jobs, entrepreneurship, research pathways,

or global opportunities—or do they leave with degrees that the market increasingly discounts unless backed by demonstrable skills?

A key tension shows up in mobility numbers. Foreign students in India remain modest, while Indian students going abroad have surged—turning “internationalisation” from a branding phrase into a competitiveness test. The document notes AISHE 2021–22 foreign- student enrolment at 46,878, and cites a policy brief that places Indian outbound mobility at over 13 lakh in 2024—an asymmetry that is hard to ignore.

This is not only about “brain drain.” It is also about the credibility of the Indian campus experience for an international learner: predictable administration, clear degree equivalence, housing and safety, academic support, and a visible route to employability. If those elements feel uncertain, permissions and MoUs alone do not convert into inbound demand.

Consider a simple, familiar campus example. A student in a tier-2 city may now access more courses than before—minors, skill modules, even micro-credentials—but still struggle to find a good lab, a stable mentor, or an internship pipeline. The system expands choice, but the student’s question stays stubbornly practical: “Will this degree move me forward?”

The biggest move of 2025: rewiring the regulator

The most consequential policy story—because it could shape the next decade—was the introduction of the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhisthan Bill, 2025 in Parliament on December 15, 2025. As summarised in the document, the proposed body is designed to replace UGC, AICTE, and NCTE, while excluding legal and medical education from its scope.

The political economy around the bill is as important as its administrative logic. The document points to the bill being sent for Joint Parliamentary Committee consideration, expected to deliberate until end-February 2026, and highlights concerns around centralised appointments and limited representation for states and teachers.

There is an honest argument for simplification: India’s higher education regulation has often been seen as fragmented, compliance-heavy, and duplicative. But the counter-argument is equally structural: a single super-regulator can become a single point of failure, especially in a

federal polity where state universities educate a large share of students and where higher education is politically sensitive.

So the crossroads insight is not merely “reform versus status quo.” It is the difference between smarter regulation and more centralised regulation, and that difference will be determined by the final bill text, rule-making, and whether institutional autonomy becomes substantive rather than procedural.

The faculty question: flexibility or a slide into permanent insecurity?

Even as the system debates architecture, it is wrestling with the labour market of teaching. The document notes that draft UGC regulations removed the cap on contract teachers, and also captures the anxiety this triggers: exploitation risks, normalisation of precarious employment, and the possibility that contractualisation becomes the default staffing model.

Yes, contract hiring can bring speed and flexibility—useful in fast- changing fields and in institutions trying to scale quickly. But the deeper risk is cultural: when teaching becomes a short-term gig, research careers become less attractive, mentoring becomes thinner, and

institutional memory erodes. The classroom may continue, but the university’s core promise—long-term academic community—weakens. In everyday terms, this shows up in small, painful ways. A department runs three new “industry-relevant” courses, but the faculty rotates every semester. Students lose continuity, projects become superficial, and recommendation letters become transactional because no mentor has actually watched a learner grow over time.

When accreditation loses trust, quality becomes everybody’s problem 

If regulation sets the rules, accreditation creates the trust layer that makes those rules meaningful. In early February 2025, that trust took a major hit. The document references a NAAC inspection committee bribery case that led to arrests, a multi-month pause in accreditation, and changes in inspection committee rules, while larger reforms remained pending.

This kind of episode is not a one-off scandal; it is a systemic risk. Once accreditation is perceived as gameable, it distorts everything downstream—student choice, employer confidence, institutional funding logic, and the legitimacy of quality claims. The document frames the core requirement clearly: quality assurance cannot become “more forms”; it

must become more credibility, built through auditability, transparency, and robust conflict-of-interest controls.

A practical analogy helps. If grading in a university is suspected to be manipulable, even honest students suffer because the value of everyone’s marks declines. Accreditation works similarly at the institutional level: once trust falls, even good institutions pay the price.

India’s federal fault line: reform is also negotiation

One policy lesson the year underlined is that education reform in India is never purely a central script. The document points to disputes linked to funding arrangements and prolonged litigation around vice-chancellor appointments in multiple states, creating institutional uncertainty that directly affects campus functioning.

When VC appointments stall, promotions and hiring stalls. When funding is delayed, infrastructure and student support weaken. When calendars slip, credibility suffers. This is not abstract politics; students experience it as delayed exams, missing faculty, and administrative drift. 

Internationalisation: permissions are not the same as Experience 

Internationalisation ran through 2025 as ambition and anxiety. The document notes that letters of intent were issued to foreign universities for campuses in Indian cities, but also flags the “first-batch reality”: the earliest foreign university campuses in GIFT City reportedly admitted only about 60 students in their first cohort.

At the same time, India is also experimenting with “knowledge export,” including an Indian management institution’s overseas campus launch with a small initial cohort—symbolically significant, but still early-stage in scale terms.

The document’s central point is operational and unavoidable: internationalisation will rise only when India fixes the last mile—visa and mobility facilitation, degree equivalence, professional student services, housing, safety, predictable regulation, and employability outcomes. This is where institutions must move from announcements to “international student-ready” systems. An international learner is not only buying a syllabus; they are buying a life setup for two to four years. Any uncertainty—on paperwork, internships, safety, or post-study pathways—reduces demand sharply, regardless of branding. 

NEP at five: momentum on paper, strain on delivery 

By end-2025, NEP 2020 will be completed in five years. The document captures a critical interpretation: monitoring, deregulation, and digitalisation have advanced faster than academic reforms, while flexibility and choice remain constrained by staff shortages and infrastructure limitations, sometimes resulting in poor-quality course experiences. It also cites operational strain in implementing structural reforms like the four-year undergraduate programme, where administrative breakdowns, such as exam-paper delivery failures, became a public lesson in what happens when reform outpaces capacity.

The underlying message is simple: modularity and choice require advising systems, course design capability, assessment readiness, and staffing. Without these, flexibility becomes confusion. 

Professional councils push back, and remain outside the new architecture

A subtle but important detail is what the proposed new framework does not cover. The document notes that legal and medical education remain outside the bill’s scope, reinforcing that India is moving into a hybrid regulatory future rather than a single consolidated logic. It also notes sharper interventions by professional bodies, including a multi-year pause on new law schools and expansion by the Bar Council of India, and standardisation moves in allied health that will affect admissions and curricula. The implication is that coordination—rather than consolidation alone—will determine whether the ecosystem becomes clearer or more contradictory for institutions and learners.

2026: the “crystal gaze” and the hard choices ahead

The document frames three possibilities for 2026: a cleaner governance regime if the bill is redesigned for trust, a credible quality reset if accreditation becomes auditable, and internationalisation at scale if India fixes last-mile delivery rather than relying on permissions alone.

It also lays out three challenges likely to intensify. First, the AI-skills squeeze. The labour market tilt toward skills is already visible, and degrees will increasingly be valued when they come with portfolios, projects, internships, labs, and industry-validated Competence.

Second, the “contract trap.” If contractual faculty expands without safeguards, short-term savings can create long-term losses in pedagogy, mentoring depth, and research culture—exactly when the system needs stronger learning outcomes.

Third, reform fatigue and operational breakdowns. Reforms that change programme structures and assessment models can overwhelm under- resourced administration, unless phased rollouts and capacity-building become the default approach.

The real crossroads: permission-led reform or outcome-led rebuilding

The most compelling framing in the document is that the crossroads is ultimately a choice between two futures: a permission-led future with new regulators and frameworks but weak delivery capacity, and an outcome-led future with fewer headline reforms but deeper investments in trust, teaching careers, student services, and global-grade campus systems.

From that lens, the 2026 agenda becomes clear. Legitimacy must be designed into the new governance framework. Accreditation must become auditable, not just inspectable. Faculty careers must remain careers, not gigs. Internationalisation must be built as student experience, not only announcements. And AI-era curriculum realism must shift classrooms toward projects, internships, micro-credentials, and the ethics of new technologies—so degrees remain economically credible.

If 2025 was the year the pressure points surfaced loudly, 2026 could be the year India decides whether it will treat trust, teaching talent, and student experience as “implementation details,” or finally place them at the centre of reform.

The author is the Chief Mentor of Edinbox and works as a Director with the Techno India group of Kolkata, along with being the Principal Adviser of the Kolkata based university of the group.

India has spent decades exporting talent, sending millions of students overseas and watching top faculty and researchers build careers elsewhere. Now, a new NITI Aayog report, released in December 2025, argues that the next phase of India’s higher-education story must be about two-way flows: attracting international students and faculty, scaling cross-border research, and building globally networked campuses, without losing India’s cultural and intellectual identity.

The document, Internationalisation of Higher Education in India: Prospects, Potential and Policy Recommendations (Dec 2025) was prepared by NITI Aayog’s Education Division with a consortium led by IIT Madras, and it is explicitly framed as an academic/policy research output, not a binding policy statement. At the centre of the report is a concrete implementation blueprint: 5 thematic pillars, 22 policy recommendations, 76 action pathways, and 125 performance indicators an attempt to convert “internationalisation” from rhetoric into measurable delivery.

What the report means by “internationalisation” (it’s broader than foreign students) 

NITI Aayog’s framing treats internationalisation as a full-spectrum redesign of how Indian universities teach, research, partner, and present themselves globally. The report explicitly includes internationalisation- at-home, student/faculty mobility, international research collaborations, international student offices, offshore and onshore campuses, and Indian knowledge systems and intercultural fluency as part of the operating model.

This matters because India’s global footprint is not only an admissions challenge; it is also a systems challenge like visa processes, degree equivalence, credit transfer, campus support, safety, and the “soft infrastructure” that makes international learners and faculty feel welcome.

The targets: a push toward global medians by 2047

To create urgency, the report introduces time-bound targets for international student presence. It points to a goal of raising India’s “international student mobility intensity” to 1.0% by 2047, translating into roughly 8 lakh inbound international students (and about 22 lakh total international enrolments when accounting for multiple cohorts). The report’s underlying message is clear: India cannot become a credible global education hub without scaling inbound mobility significantly—and doing so requires coordinated action across education, home affairs, external affairs, and state governments. 

At-a-glance: the flagship proposals (and the “brands” the report wants India to build)

Each element above is drawn from the report’s policy recommendations

and implementation roadmaps.

Pillar 1: Strategy—build a national operating system, not scattered pilots

The report’s first move is to treat internationalisation as a whole-of- government, whole-of-system programme, not a set of disconnected MoUs. It proposes a comprehensive national strategy, including coordination mechanisms and measurable monitoring. A key strategy lever is the creation of Global Higher Education Hubs—regional ecosystems designed around STEAM disciplines and anchored in collaboration among universities, industry, government and society. This can be also criticised that the recommendations actually ignore the non-STEM disciplines, which in effect may also include management, law, communication, design, languages. The proposal explicitly suggests replicating hub models (including the “GIFT City approach”), creating incentives for high-potential Indian and international universities, and aligning hubs with national missions such as Digital India and Startup India. There are critics who explain with facts how the GIFT City of Gandhinagar has not been a success to boast

about.

The intent is not just student recruitment. These hubs are positioned as education-led innovation ecosystems that drive regional economic transformation and global reputation—i.e., internationalisation as industrial strategy, not only education policy.

Pillar 2: Regulation—reduce friction for people, programmes, and campuses

If strategy sets direction, regulation determines whether anything moves at speed. The report’s regulatory proposals focus on three bottlenecks:

1) Mobility permissions and administrative simplification

It calls for streamlined administrative procedures to enable smoother movement of students, faculty and researchers.

2) International branch campuses and eligibility rules

The report pushes for broadening eligibility and simplifying approval processes to make India a more competitive destination for foreign universities—moving beyond narrow filters and enabling faster decision cycles.

3) Co-located and “embedded” campus models

Instead of waiting only for standalone foreign campuses, the report proposes integrated/co-located campuses within Indian institutions—where foreign HEIs can plug into Indian public/private campuses through shared infrastructure and academic delivery. And to create a visible “proof-of-concept zone,” it recommends establishing GIFT IFSC as a model international education hub, expanding academic disciplines and aligning the ecosystem for global participation.

Finally, it argues that incentives matter only if rankings and reputational systems reward the right behaviours—hence the recommendation to revise NIRF to include internationalisation metrics aligned with NEP 2020.

Pillar 3: Mobility at scale—“Tagore Framework” for regional exchanges

Rather than only bilateral exchange MoUs (which often remain symbolic), the report advocates a multilateral architecture an Erasmus- like system adapted for regions such as ASEAN, BIMSTEC, or BRICS.

It even proposes a cultural-diplomacy identity for it: the “Tagore Framework,” taking into consideration the early internationalization of art and culture by Vishwabharati University at Shantiniketan, founded by the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

The strategic subtext: India’s comparative advantage may lie in building Global South academic corridors that are structured, credit-recognised, and easier to navigate than today’s patchwork.

Pillar 4: Finance—new money, smarter instruments, and research-linked internationalisation

The report’s financing logic is blunt: internationalisation needs long- horizon funding, and India’s diaspora is an underutilised strategic asset. Bharat Vidya Kosh: a diaspora-led research sovereign impact fund. It proposes a National Research Sovereign Wealth Impact Fund—Bharat Vidya Kosh—a diaspora-led, government-matched trust-style vehicle to finance research, innovation and capacity-building. The model includes a proposed USD 10 billion corpus, split between diaspora/philanthropy and a government match.

Vishwa Bandhu Scholarship and Fellowship: prestige as policy To compete in global talent markets, the report recommends a flagship scholarship for international master’s students—Vishwa Bandhu Scholarship—modelled after global benchmarks. For researchers and faculty (especially diaspora), it proposes the Vishwa Bandhu Fellowship, designed to be globally competitive and administratively streamlined.

Erasmus Mundus, Ford Foundation Fellowships, Commonwealth Fellowships and many more are there as global illustrations of similar initiatives. Policy Recommendation 12: use existing global research money—systematically. A quieter but highly operational recommendation urges leading Indian central and state public universities to proactively tap bilateral and multilateral joint research funding programmes—by building internal capacity to access and manage such funds and by creating global consortia.

Pillar 5: Branding, communication and outreach—treat education as diplomacy

NITI Aayog’s report is unusually explicit that “internationalisation” is also a market-building exercise—with differentiated messaging for different countries.

It recommends developing country- and region-specific outreach strategies (BCO) based on Indian strengths, employer demand, diaspora influence, and trust signals.. Two notable “soft power” levers stand out: Indian Alumni Ambassador Network (“Bharat ki AAN”) to build credibility, mentoring pathways, and recruitment pull in target markets.

An annual flagship convening—Bharat Vidya Manthan—to position India as a global meeting point for higher education and research partnerships. The report also proposes a structured push for Global Academic and Research Exchange Programmes, including outward mobility schemes and institutional partnership engines, so exchanges become repeatable programmes rather than ad hoc arrangements.

And finally, it calls for revamping “Study in India” into a one-stop solution—reducing friction from discovery to application to onboarding.

Pillar 6: Curriculum and culture—internationalise “at home,” keep India’s intellectual signature

A key theme is that India should not chase global norms by flattening its identity. The report calls for building globally connected but culturally grounded institutions—linking internationalisation to India’s civilisational and knowledge traditions.

This shows up in three practical recommendations:

1. Internationalisation at home through curriculum redesign and campus practices (including language and cultural preparedness).
2. Build intercultural and foreign-language competence via national missions and institutional mechanisms.
3. Integrate global approaches with Indian philosophy and IKS, while promoting research addressing India’s socioeconomic challenges and giving global visibility to Indian knowledge systems across 

STEM and non-STEM.

The “student experience” shifts towards safety, housing, counselling, and belonging. One of the most implementable recommendations is also one of the most consequential: treat international students as a serious constituency with baseline global expectations.

The report recommends that universities adopt global standards for housing, campus safety, academic support, counselling, and cultural orientation, plus language assistance and mentorship to enable integration. This is not cosmetic. In global higher education, student satisfaction and word-of-mouth are major recruitment engines; without credible student experience, branding campaigns simply leak conversions. One of the biggest challenges for foreign students coming to India has been the hostile situation some of them have faced due to racism and due to public perception of the nations from which  foreign students have come.

The report’s strength is its operational clarity—named programmes, named actors, and measurable indicators. But three “watch areas” follow from the proposals themselves:

1. Coordination risk: many recommendations require tight synchronisation across ministries and states (especially visas, campus approvals, and safety standards).
2. Reputation and quality assurance: faster approvals and hub models will only work if quality signals remain credible.
3. Delivery capacity inside universities: several proposals assume capable International Relations Offices, sponsored research offices, and student services systems—capacities that vary widely today.

NITI Aayog’s report does not argue for internationalisation as a fashionable add-on. It frames it as a strategic necessity tied to Viksit Bharat 2047, backed by a full-stack programme architecture—from hubs and regulations to scholarships, diaspora financing, and student experience.

If implemented seriously, the proposals would reposition India from a country primarily known for outbound mobility to one that also hosts, convenes, and co-creates global higher education on India’s terms, with India’s identity intact. However, looking at the pace of implementation of NEP 2020, there are natural questions on the pace and extent of the limitations of these apparently clearly stated goals and perspectives by Niti Ayog.

The author is the Chief Mentor of Edinbox and works as a Director with the Techno India group of Kolkata, along with being the Principal Adviser of the Kolkata based university of the group.