India, July 29 -- Six years after the Union Cabinet cleared the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, India's ambitious rewrite of its education system since 1986 has moved from paper into classrooms in patches - deep in some areas, barely at all in others.

Starting with pre-school, the 5+3+3+4 school structure replaced the decades-old 10+2 model, with early childhood education officially being folded into formal schooling. Undergraduate students can bank credits and exit degrees midway. Foreign universities have started operating in India, and Indian institutes have opened campuses abroad.

But the higher education regulator meant to replace the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and th...