Beyond Rote Learning: How the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) is Reimagining Modern Education at Jamia Millia Islamia

For decades, India's education system has leaned heavily on rote memorization and examination-oriented learning. Graduates from this system tend to do well on paper, but the approach has struggled to build creativity, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, or the ability to solve real-world problems. National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 tries to correct this by pushing competency-based, multidisciplinary, experiential, learner-centered pedagogy. The Indian Knowledge System (IKS) sits at the center of that reform, an effort to bring India's intellectual heritage into contemporary classrooms rather than simply revive old traditions for their own sake.

IKS covers mathematics, astronomy, medicine, environmental science, agriculture, philosophy, linguistics, governance, psychology, ethics, yoga, and the performing arts. The Ministry of Education set up the Indian Knowledge Systems Division in 2020 to drive research, curriculum development, teacher education, and interdisciplinary scholarship rooted in these traditions. The premise is that multiple ways of knowing scientific inquiry alongside cultural and contextual understanding. It coexists with modern science rather than competing against it (Government of India, 2020).

The deeper contribution of IKS may be philosophical. Older Indian educational traditions built learning around Jijnasa (inquiry), Samvada (dialogue), Manana (reflection), Anubhava (experience), and Prajna (wisdom), concepts that map fairly closely onto constructivism, experiential learning, and reflective practice as they're understood today. Framed this way, IKS pushes classrooms away from teacher-centered instruction and toward active participation, questioning, collaboration, and applied problem-solving.

That relevance sharpens as AI takes over more of the work of storing and retrieving information. If machines can hold the facts, education needs to lean harder on what machines can't do: creativity, empathy, cultural intelligence, ethical judgment, systems thinking, working with other people. Bringing IKS into the classroom connects knowledge to values, sustainability, and community in a way that supports those competencies. And tools like AI-assisted translation of classical texts, digital archives, virtual museums, and the DIKSHA platform show that technology can widen access to indigenous knowledge instead of displacing it.

Several Indian universities have already moved on this. Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) stands out for how it has folded IKS into mainstream higher education through multilingual instruction, teacher preparation, and research on indigenous knowledge.

One thread of that work is language. In February 2026, JMI partnered with the Ministry of Education's Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT) to organise a national workshop building a Learner's Glossary of Social Sciences in English and Hindi, an attempt to make academic terminology accessible in Indian languages and advance NEP 2020's multilingual goals.

At the workshop, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Mazhar Asif argued that reclaiming Indian languages and knowledge traditions is necessary to move past the colonial framing that has shaped higher education for so long. Universities, in his view, should treat indigenous intellectual traditions as equal partners to global scholarship rather than subordinate to it.

JMI has built this into its teacher training too. The Centre for Distance and Online Education (CDOE) now runs an Indian Knowledge System course as part of its B.Ed. curriculum, so future teachers get direct exposure to India's educational philosophies, indigenous pedagogy, ethical traditions, environmental knowledge, and culturally responsive teaching.

On the research side, a JMI scholar recently won a Commonwealth Scholarship to study the Indian Knowledge System of tribal communities. It is a sign that this work is drawing attention well beyond India.

Taken together, these efforts show how NEP 2020's vision translates into actual institutional practice at JMI: language resources, curriculum change, teacher training, and research recognized internationally, without giving up scientific rigor or global relevance.

None of this is simple to implement. It needs teachers who are properly trained, research that can withstand scrutiny, and curriculum redesign that doesn't just pile more content onto an already full syllabus. Scholars working in this space have also warned against romanticizing the past or accepting traditional claims without testing them.

IKS isn't really about looking backward. It's an attempt to shape what education looks like going forward, not by celebrating past achievement, but by producing learners who can think clearly, act ethically, and take on the social, environmental, and technological problems the twenty-first century keeps handing them.

References

Government of India. (2020). National Education Policy 2020. Ministry of Education.

Indian Knowledge Systems Division. (2024). Indian Knowledge Systems. Ministry of Education. https://iksindia.org

Jamia Millia Islamia. (2025). Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) Programme Guide. Centre for Distance and Online Education. https://jmi.ac.in/upload/menuupload/cdoe_programmes_guide_bed.pdf

Jamia Millia Islamia. (2026). JMI Research Scholar Awarded Commonwealth Scholarship to Study Indian Knowledge System of Tribes. https://jmi.ac.in/BULLETIN-BOARD/Press-Release/Latest/5892

OECD. (2019). PISA 2018 Results (Volume I): What Students Know and Can Do. OECD Publishing.

Policy Dimensions and Implementation Strategies for Indian Knowledge Systems Integration in NEP 2020. (2026). Research Trends Journal.

Shanwal, V. K. (2025). Integrating Indian Knowledge System into Modern Education under the Framework of NEP 2020. eChetana Research Journal.

Sharma, R., & Vanguri, R. (2025). Revitalizing Higher Education through Indian Knowledge System (IKS): A Vision for NEP 2020. University News, 16(2).

UNESCO. (2021). Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education. UNESCO Publishing.

World Bank. (2018). World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education's Promise. World Bank.

THEWEEK. (2026, January 15). Jamia pushes for Indian Knowledge System as it works on Hindi social science glossary. https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/national/2026/01/15/jamia-pushes-for-indian-knowledge-system-as-it-works-on-hindi-social-science-glossary.html