Institute of Education

Publications

• Book

  Mehrotra S. K., Singh A. P.

  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 progression, mobility, and labour-market signalling? This paper starts with this question, and then examines the evolution of India’s qualifications architecture through the trajectory of the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) and the emergence of the National Credit Framework (NCrF). More specifically, it addresses the question: why did the NSQF fall short of becoming a trusted qualifications framework, and to what extent can the NCrF overcome these limitations to create an integrated and credible qualifications system? The NSQF, introduced in 2013 as a learningoutcomes-based framework, sought to improve progression, portability, and comparability across education and training. However, its implementation became concentrated on short-duration skilling programmes and fragmented institutional arrangements, resulting in weak assessment credibility, limited labour-market recognition, and constrained learner progression. Drawing on policy documents, implementation evidence, and comparative institutional analysis, the paper argues that these shortcomings were structural rather than technical: qualifications frameworks cannot generate trust or mobility without robust institutions for assessment, certification, quality assurance, and recognition. Against this backdrop, the NCrF (2023), introduced under the National Education Policy 2020, represents a second-generation reform. By integrating school education, higher education, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and experiential learning within a unified credit architecture, it has become the organising framework of India’s qualifications system. The paper shows that India has effectively moved from a single-framework model centred on the NSQF to a more complex architecture incorporating the NHEQF, NSEQF, and NCrF. It further argues that the alignment of the NSQF and NCrF has transformed India’s qualifications structure from what is commonly described as an eight-level framework into a 13-level progression system through the introduction of intermediary levels between Levels 2 and 7, with important implications for progression, comparability, and learner mobility. Drawing on international experience, the paper concludes that successful qualifications reform depends less on framework design than on trusted certification, visible progression pathways, and employer recognition. India’s next phase of reform must therefore shift from training expansion to assessment-based trust, progression-oriented qualifications, and stronger integration with domestic and international labour markets.

  Vol. 18709. IZA Discussion Paper, 2026.

• Article

  Fomicheva E., Mikhaylova O.

  The Body as an Algorithm: Digital Biopolitics, Embodiment, and Gendered Control in Menstrual Tracking Applications

  This article examines how menstrual tracking apps reconfigure the body through digital biopolitics and feminist embodiment theory. Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with Russian women aged 18–30, it extends the concept of datafied embodiment to analyse how predictive analytics mediate bodily perception and reproductive practices. The study shows how apps construct a specific mode of bodily knowledge in which menstruation is framed as a manageable cycle visualized through charts, reminders, and symptom logs. While users often engage with apps as tools of emotional reassurance and health management, the findings reveal a paradox of control: menstrual apps offer autonomy and legitimacy to previously devalued bodily states, yet simultaneously reproduce normative ideals of femininity and reproductive responsibility through aesthetic and algorithmic cues. Privacy is negotiated situationally, with users treating cycle logs as relatively low-risk while drawing firmer boundaries around data linked to sexuality and reproductive decision-making. Within a post-Soviet context marked by menstrual taboo, a contested public status for feminism, and tightening reproductive politics, the article argues that FemTech’s promise of empowerment coexists with a tendency to make women individually responsible for monitoring and optimizing their bodies.

  Journal of Gender Studies. 2026.

• Book chapter

  Koroleva D., Jogezai N.

  Navigating the Blessing–Curse Paradox: An Ecological Perspective of Cultivating a Culture of Responsible Generative AI Use in Higher Education

  The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative artificial intelligence (GAI), has positioned educational institutions and individual learners at the crossroads of opportunity and risk, highlighting both significant benefits and potential drawbacks. In this context, fostering a culture of responsible and meaningful GAI use has become essential for leveraging its advantages while mitigating associated challenges. This chapter presents the results of two phenomenological qualitative studies that explore this cultural dimension. Study one examined Russian university professors' perspectives on the articulation of individual and organizational GAI standards, while Study two investigated the views of Russian educational managers, aiming to provide a balanced assessment of guidelines at both levels. Employing semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, the findings illuminate how individual or microsystem, and organizational, or mesosystem interactions and tensions shape the development of guidelines and practices that promote a responsible approach to GAI use in higher education. At the microsystem level, individual faculty seek awareness, autonomy, and ethical engagement with GAI, while at the mesosystem level, organizational structures, guidelines, and policies mediate these efforts, negotiating the balance between individual practices and institutional support and accountability. The results highlight that responsible GAI governance emerges not as a set of static rules but through ongoing interactions between individual agency and organizational frameworks. Future research can incorporate observational data, longitudinal designs, or cross-cultural comparisons to further validate and extend these insights.

  In bk.: GenAIED: Cultural and Pedagogical Catalysts in Higher Education. L.: Routledge, 2026. Ch. 16.

• Working paper

  Antipkina I., Ivanov A., Guzhelya D.

  Explicit continuum scale format reduces the ceiling effect in self-report questionnaires comparing to Likert response format

  This study presents a methodology for developing a new questionnaire format called explicit continuum scenario scales, in the example of a client focus questionnaire. Elements of the Rasch Guttman scenario scale methodology were used in its development. In three consequent studies, different aspects of the scale functioning were investigated. In Study 1, on the sample of 100 respondents, it was shown that the explicit continuum scale produces reliable results and helps avoid the ceiling effect shown in the Likert response format version of the client focus questionnaire. In Study 2, the scale was administered in a competition environment, in a sample of 735 people. Despite the positive shift of scores, the instrument shows excellent psychometric characteristics and still resists the ceiling effect. In Study 3, new items were included, and the scale was presented in an interactive format. In the sample of 65,000 university students, it demonstrated the robustness of its psychometrics characteristics including dimensionality. The results of the three studies show that the explicit continuum format has the advantage of the stable dimensionality similar to the expanded format and is promising for measurement in social sciences.

  Basic research program. WP BRP. National Research University Higher School of Economics, 2024