From Policy Vision to Policy Instruments: A Multidimensional Analysis of Language-in-Education in India’s National Education Policy-2020

Abstract

This study examines how India’s National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) presents its vision for language in education and the measures proposed to put that vision into practice. It uses an integrated framework drawing on Ruíz’s language orientations, Fairclough’s critical discourse perspective, Spolsky’s language-management framework and policy-instrument theory. A framework-guided qualitative and quantitative content analysis was used to examine language-related provisions in NEP 2020. These provisions were classified into seven categories and analysed using frequency, percentage share and a study-specific Representation Index (RI). The findings show that Language as a Resource is the most prominent policy vision, accounting for 33.3% of coded references (RI= 2.33). This suggests that NEP 2020 largely views multilingualism as a cognitive, cultural, educational and socio-economic resource. Among the policy instruments, Educational and Training Initiatives receive the greatest emphasis (17.1%, RI= 1.20), while Economic Incentivization receives the least (4.3%, RI= 0.30). Overall, the policy’s multilingual vision is supported mainly through pedagogical and capacity-building measures, while financial mechanisms receive less attention in the policy text. By bringing policy vision and policy instruments together, the study offers an integrated way of understanding how language-policy goals are linked to the mechanisms proposed to achieve them.