Education (Social Justice).
Syllabus: UPSC Mains GS2: welfare schemes, vulnerable sections, health, education, poverty, hunger
NEP 2020 for UPSC: 5+3+3+4 structure, foundational literacy, mother tongue, four-year degree, Academic Bank of Credits, 50% GER goal, 6% of GDP…
The National Medical Commission (NMC) has de-notified the Maintenance of Standards of Medical Education Regulations, 2023 (MSMER-2023) by a notification dated 14 October 2026, published in the Gazette on 16 October. Its fixed penalties, including seat cuts and fines of up to ₹5 lakh for false records, go with it. The Annual Disclosure Report stays.
UPSC angle: Prelims: NMC Act 2019, autonomous boards, Concurrent List Entry 25. · Mains GS-II: regulation of medical education.
19 Oct 2026
PM-SETU, launched on 4 October 2025 to upgrade 1,000 Government ITIs through a hub-and-spoke model, has identified 850 ITIs and approved 14 ITI clusters worth ₹3446 crore in its first year. The scheme has a ₹60,000 crore outlay shared by the Centre, States and industry, and also upgrades five NSTIs.
UPSC angle: Prelims: PM-SETU expansion; hub-and-spoke. · Mains: Making ITIs industry-relevant.
3 Oct 2026
A PIB backgrounder of 29 September 2026 says the Education Ministry has, for the first time, defined literacy as reading, writing and computing with comprehension, plus life skills like digital and financial literacy. A State or UT at 95 per cent counts as fully literate. PLFS 2025 puts India's literacy rate at 81.1 per cent.
UPSC angle: Prelims: 95% threshold; new definition components.
29 Sep 2026
A PIB backgrounder of 30 August 2026 uses AISHE data to show a decade of change in higher education. Between 2014-15 and 2023-24 universities rose from 760 to 1,289, enrolment from 3.42 crore to 4.50 crore, and GER from 23.7 to 30 per cent. Female GER reached 31.2 per cent, ahead of male GER.
UPSC angle: Prelims: AISHE; NEP GER target.
30 Aug 2026
The Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), a Ministry of Education platform regulated by UGC, stores, transfers and redeems the credits a student earns. APAAR is the 12-digit "One Nation, One Student ID" linked to it. By 2 July 2026, 26.35 crore verified APAAR IDs had been generated, and 2,899 higher education institutions had registered on ABC.
UPSC angle: Prelims: NEP initiatives.
4 Jul 2026
DIKSHA, the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing, is India's open-source "One Nation, One Digital Platform" for school education, launched in 2017 and run by NCERT with CIET. A PIB backgrounder of 28 June 2026 reports 2.25 crore registered users, about 3 lakh daily active users, 7,687 Energised Textbooks and support for 135 languages.
UPSC angle: Prelims: DIKSHA, PM e-Vidya.
28 Jun 2026