Reconfiguring India’s Qualifications Architecture: TVET Reform from the National Skills Qualification Framework to the National Credit Framework

Under what institutional conditions do qualifications frameworks become trusted mechanisms for learner progression, mobility, and labour-market signalling? This paper addresses this question for India by analysing the India’s National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) and the emerging National Credit Framework (NCrF). It argues that the NSQF, introduced in 2013, created a common classification of qualifications but could not become a trusted framework because assessment, certification, quality assurance, and employer recognition remained weak. Its limitations were therefore structural. The NCrF seeks to integrate school education, higher education, vocational training, and experiential learning through a unified credit system. Thus, India has moved from a single qualifications framework to a broader qualifications architecture now emerging. Alignment between NSQF and NCrF creates a 13-level progression system, rather than the eight-level structure commonly associated with NSQF. Drawing on international experience, it concludes that qualifications reforms succeed not through framework design but through trusted certification, clear progression pathways, and employer acceptance.