📄 Abstract
The National Education Policy 2020 gives vocational education a central place in India’s school reform agenda by proposing early exposure to skills, integration of vocational and academic streams, internships with local experts, collaboration with ITIs and local industry, and the target that at least 50 per cent of learners should receive vocational exposure by 2025. This paper critically analyses the distance between this policy promise and ground-level reality with specific reference to Uttar Pradesh. The study uses policy analysis, secondary data, official scheme documents and a development-oriented conceptual lens to examine how vocational education is being mainstreamed through Samagra Shiksha, NSQF-aligned courses, employability skills modules, state skill missions and U.P.-specific initiatives such as Project Praveen. The paper argues that NEP 2020 represents a decisive shift from the older “diversion” model of vocational education to an “integration” model; however, implementation depends on infrastructure, trained vocational teachers, field exposure, certification credibility, social acceptance, gender-sensitive access, and local labour-market relevance. Uttar Pradesh is a significant case because of its large youth population, wide rural-urban diversity, strong need for employability-oriented education and the scale of public schooling. The analysis shows that policy design has become more coherent, but delivery remains uneven. The gap is not simply a shortage of schemes; it is the weakness of the implementation ecosystem that links schools, trainers, parents, employers, ITIs and district-level administration. The paper concludes that vocational education can contribute to employability, social mobility and regional development only if it becomes a respected, well-resourced and locally relevant part of secondary education rather than a symbolic add-on.
🏷️ Keywords
📚 How to Cite:
Anand Sagar, Dr. Tanu Varshney , FROM POLICY PROMISE TO GROUND REALITY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION UNDER NEP 2020 WITH REFERENCE TO UTTAR PRADESH , Volume 14 , Issue 7, July 2026, International Journal of Asian Economic Light (JAEL) , Pages: 12 - 23 ,