Academic Bank Of Credits (ABC): National Education Policy (NEP) 2020

Policy Update

Shivali Yadav

1. Background

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 introduced the concept of an Academic Bank of Credits, a digital system where students could accumulate credits earned from accredited institutions and later use them for transfer, accumulation, or redemption for a degree, diploma, or certificate. The University Grants Commission acted on this promptly. In agreement with the Ministry of Education, it announced the ABC Regulations, 2021 in the Gazette of India on 28 July 2021, utilizing Section 26(1)(f) and (g) of the UGC Act, 1956. The initiative was publicly unveiled around the first anniversary of NEP 2020.

What distinguishes ABC as a government initiative is that it isn’t a Centrally Sponsored Scheme in the conventional, capital-intensive manner; it’s more akin to digital public infrastructure. The technical infrastructure, the National Academic Depository and the ABC portal, was developed by the National e-Governance Division under MeitY and integrated into the current DigiLocker ecosystem.

The policy aim was to relax strict degree frameworks: increased curriculum flexibility, smoother transitions between disciplines, and a Multiple Entry and Multiple Exit (MEME) system allowing a student to obtain a Certificate after one year, a Diploma after two, or a complete Degree after three or four. It was originally intended for students in qualifying Higher Education Institutions and later expanded to include Skill Awarding Bodies. Significantly, the UGC expanded eligibility merely five months after the announcement on 28 December 2021; it revised the rules to include not only NAAC ‘A’-grade or NIRF top-100 institutions but also allowed registration for all Universities, Autonomous Colleges, and Institutions of National Importance.

2. Functioning

ABC operates on a triadic framework. The UGC establishes the academic guidelines, NeGD and MeitY offer the digital infrastructure via DigiLocker and NAD, and the real student records data originates from Award Granting Institutions: universities, autonomous colleges, Institutions of National Importance, and Skill Awarding Bodies.

A student registers on abc.gov.in and receives a distinct ABC ID, which has now been integrated into the larger APAAR ID under the “One Nation, One Student ID” initiative, a 12-digit identification linked to Aadhaar and DigiLocker. Institutions then upload validated credit information directly associated with a student’s APAAR ID. Certain safeguards are established: a minimum of 50% of a student’s credits must originate from the institution granting the final qualification, and any accumulated credits have a validity period of seven years, after which they must be utilized, or they expire.

To expand the on-ramp, the UGC permits up to 40 percent of credits from MOOCs on the SWAYAM platform and has established registration via Common Service Centres to ensure that students in distant regions are not excluded due to insufficient digital access. Currently, oversight primarily occurs through directives at the portal level, with the UGC consistently urging institutions to register and submit data, most recently establishing a deadline of 30 June 2026 for HEIs to complete the upload of credit data for students assessed in 2025.

The deadline highlights implementation challenges and the slow pace of institutional adaptation. The Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports of Parliament examined this during its evaluation of NEP 2020’s execution in higher education. It highlighted genuine issues of feasibility and predictability in the uniform implementation of MEME. It suggested that institutions establish dedicated systems solely to address student inquiries regarding ABC and MEME, a recommendation that becomes increasingly significant when you note that approximately 70 percent of Indian universities operate under State Acts, with widely varying levels of administrative and digital capabilities.

   Figure 1. Functioning of the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) 

Source: https://www.iitms.co.in/blog/what-is-academic-bank-of-credit.html

3. Performance

The figures indicate a rather rapid increase since the guidelines were announced. On 2 July 2026, there were 2,899 Higher Education Institutions and 98 Skill Awarding Bodies registered on the NAD-ABC portal. Expanding the perspective beyond higher education, the numbers are even larger: 16.62 crore APAAR IDs have been created at the school level, along with an additional 3.39 crore APAAR IDs that remain unassigned to any awarding institution, bringing the overall total of verified APAAR IDs across all educational tiers to 26.35 crore.

The flexible features incorporated into ABC have also gained traction: more than 700 universities and 6,600 colleges currently provide MEME pathways, about 450 universities have adopted the SWAYAM credit-transfer framework, and 196 universities have implemented the National Credit Framework (NCrF), extending ABC’s principles to vocational and skills education. Earlier UGC data further show that cumulative student registrations crossed one crore by mid-2023 and two crore by October 2023, demonstrating the rapid pace of early adoption before the system was consolidated under APAAR.

Overall, these figures indicate that while ABC has achieved substantial institutional expansion and large-scale student registration within a short period, the next phase of implementation will depend on improving credit mapping, expanding institutional participation, and ensuring more effective utilisation of the platform. 

The legal framework was altered once more on 21 November 2025. Under Gazette Notification S.O. 5319(E), the Ministry of Labour and Employment implemented most provisions of the Code on Social Security, 2020, integrating the independent Cess Act with seven other labour laws into the new Code.1 The process of cess collection remains mostly the same, but the assessment method has changed: employers are now responsible for self-assessing their cess liabilities rather than having them assessed by a government agency.

Table 1. Academic Bank of Credits (ABC): Institutional Registration, APAAR IDs and Credit Records. 

Source: “Academic Bank of Credits and APAAR”, Factsheet, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 4 July 2026 (data as on 2 July 2026).

4. Impact    

The most evident effect of ABC to date is the development of a portable, verifiable digital academic identity for students in India. Consolidating school, higher-education, skills, and vocational records under a single APAAR ID, available via DigiLocker, has reduced dependence on physical transcripts and accelerated verification for both recruitment and admissions. It has also provided the MEME framework with true scale; more than 7,300 universities and colleges together now provide various types of flexible entry-exit options. Adding Skill Awarding Bodies to the system and integrating almost 200 universities into the National Credit Framework are initial indications of progress towards one of the more challenging objectives of NEP 2020: genuinely combining general and vocational education rather than maintaining them in isolated silos, a persistent flaw in Indian higher education.

However, government data itself indicates a discrepancy between enrollment and actual system usage. Out of the 4.79 crore APAAR IDs established and linked to HEIs, there are 9.78 crore credit records, which aligns with multi-year accumulation; however, an additional 3.39 crore APAAR IDs across the country remain unmapped to any institution. In simple terms, a significant number of registrants possess an identity within the system but currently lack any real academic record associated with it. With just 98 Skill Awarding Bodies involved, ABC’s footprint in vocational training appears limited compared to the vastness of India’s skilling landscape, indicating that this aspect of the initiative remains in its infancy.

5. Emerging Issues

• Registration-to-Utilisation Gap

A key implementation challenge is the gap between registration and actual utilisation. PIB’s data shows 3.39 crore APAAR IDs remain unmapped with no institutional mapping behind them; the creation of digital identities has outpaced the mapping of institutional credit records.

• Feasibility of Multiple Entry and Multiple Exit (MEME)

Related to this is the feasibility of Multiple Entry and Multiple Exit itself. The Parliamentary Standing Committee explicitly highlighted concerns regarding the predictability and feasibility of implementing MEME across institutions with varying academic calendars and administrative capacities.

• Uneven State University Preparedness

That unevenness is compounded by how uneven State university preparedness actually is. Nearly 70 per cent of India’s universities function under State Acts, per the Committee’s report, and digital readiness across States varies enormously; some are well ahead of the curve, others barely equipped to integrate with NAD-ABC at all.

• Retrospective Compliance Deadlines

There’s also a pattern of retrospective compliance deadlines that requires attention. The UGC only mandated that HEIs finish uploading 2025 examination credit data by 30 June 2026, a considerable lag between when students were actually examined and when their records got digitised.

• Early Regulatory Reversal on Eligibility

Another issue concerns the early revision of the eligibility criteria. The original 2021 regulation limited ABC to NAAC ‘A’-grade or NIRF top-100 institutions, only for the UGC to revise the eligibility criteria within five months and open it to all universities and autonomous colleges. Although the revised eligibility criteria expanded institutional participation, the rapid policy revision suggests that the initial framework required further consultation.

• Data Privacy and Budget Transparency

Finally, data privacy and governance remain important policy considerations. ABC and APAAR authentication run on Aadhaar-linked DigiLocker credentials, and this is a system storing lifelong academic records for minors and young adults, which raises real data-protection stakes. Separately, because ABC sits inside UGC and MeitY’s existing functions rather than existing as its own Centrally Sponsored Scheme, there is an absence of a transparent budget trail and no itemised, publicly disclosed spending line, which limits the kind of Parliamentary financial scrutiny that capital-outlay schemes usually receive.

6. Way Forward

With 26.35 crore verified APAAR IDs produced across school, higher, and skill education, ABC has evidently progressed beyond being merely a regulatory proposal; it has become an operational, national-scale digital identity framework for education. The primary challenge from this point isn’t size; it’s complexity. Bridging the registration-to-mapping divide by methodically connecting the 3.39 crore unlinked APAAR IDs to real institutional credit data should remain a priority, supported by institution-level helpdesks and periodic reconciliation drives.

Accelerating the adoption of the National Credit Framework significantly beyond the existing 196 universities is equally important, considering that a large portion of national enrolment is within State universities that have not yet participated. Targeted technical and financial support for State universities with lower levels of digital readiness would help strengthen integration with NAD-ABC and reduce disparities in implementation.

Accelerating the integration of Skill Awarding Bodies would further fulfil the commitment of NEP 2020 to merge general and vocational education. At the same time, clearer implementation guidelines for Multiple Entry and Multiple Exit (MEME), supported by institutional grievance-redressal mechanisms, would improve consistency across institutions with varying academic calendars and administrative capacities. Integrating real-time or annual credit-upload compliance into the regular UGC and NAAC accreditation cycle, rather than relying on retrospective compliance deadlines, would also help maintain accurate and up-to-date academic records. Similarly, wider stakeholder consultation and phased piloting before introducing major eligibility changes would improve the stability and predictability of future regulatory reforms.

Continued strengthening of consent-based data governance, in line with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, together with periodic independent security audits and the exploration of emerging verification tools such as Blockchain for Digital Credentials developed by the Digital India Corporation, can further enhance the integrity and security of ABC and APAAR records. Greater financial transparency is equally important. Publishing a detailed, itemised budget and expenditure statement for ABC and the National Academic Depository within the Ministry of Education’s Detailed Demand for Grants would strengthen Parliamentary oversight and public accountability.

If these measures are implemented effectively, ABC advances significantly towards NEP 2020’s aim of a flexible, lifelong learning framework that aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education and the wider Viksit Bharat 2047 goal of a digitally empowered, adaptable, continually skilled workforce.

References

Ministry of Human Resource Development. (2020). National education policy 2020. Government of India. https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NEP_Final_English_0.pdf

Parliament of India, Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports. (n.d.). Report on implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 in higher education. https://sansad.in/getFile/lsscommittee/Education,%20Women,%20Children,%20Youth%20and%20Sports/17_Education_Youth_And_Sports_355.pdf

Press Information Bureau. (2026, July 4). Academic Bank of Credits and APAAR—Factsheet. PIB Research Unit, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/FactsheetDetails.aspx?id=150693

University Grants Commission. (2021, July 28). The University Grants Commission (Establishment and Operation of Academic Bank of Credits in Higher Education) Regulations, 2021. Gazette of India. https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/0512570_ABC-Regulations.pdf

University Grants Commission. (2021, December 28). The University Grants Commission (Establishment and Operation of Academic Bank of Credits in Higher Education) (First Amendment) Regulations, 2021. Gazette of India. https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/7321747_ABC-First-Amendment-Regulations-2021.pdf

University Grants Commission. (n.d.). Academic Bank of Credits: About us and FAQs. https://www.abc.gov.in

University Grants Commission. (n.d.). Report of the High-Level Committee on the National Credit Framework (NCrF). https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/9530800_Report-of-the-High-Level-Committee-on-National-Credit-Framework.pdf

About the Contributor: 

Shivali Yadav is pursuing an M.A. in Liberal Studies at Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj, and is an IMPRI intern. Her work focuses on gender, education, youth, and public policy, with interests in educational equity and qualitative research. 

Acknowledgement 

The author sincerely thanks the reviewers and editorial team for their valuable comments, constructive suggestions, and guidance. Their feedback helped improve the clarity, structure, and analytical depth of this policy update.

Reviewers: 

Madhuritha D.,  Vaishnavi Nandedkar.

Disclaimer:

All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.

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