Context-Specific Pedagogy in Mathematics Education: Key to Realize the Visions of Nep 2020

The National Education Policy 2020 directly addresses the persistent challenges in India’s mathematics education, which include widespread mathematics anxiety, a lack of flexibility in pedagogical approaches, and an inability to translate conceptual understanding into practical application. The policy requires an institutional transition from memorisation to competency-based education and the development of 21st-century skills. This article reviews the literature on the effectiveness of context-specific pedagogy, defined as the strategic use of local, authentic, real-world context, to highlight it as the essential methodological means for achieving such policy goals. The review synthesises evidence that context-specific pedagogy enhances students' cognition by connecting abstract mathematics with real-world experiences through processes such as mathematical modelling and experiential learning. Importantly, context-specific pedagogy is designed to promote affective engagement in mathematics by making it meaningful and reducing the historical fear of the subject that has been a consistent obstacle identified in national achievement surveys. The study also carries out a detailed policy synthesis to chart a direct linkage between context-specific pedagogy and NEP 2020's core objectives: Competency-based education needs to assess application capability, which can only be attained through contextualised problems; the mandate for interdisciplinarity is inherently facilitated by projects based on the local culture and economy; and the policy emphasis on enjoyable and activity-based learning is really a call for context-based teaching. However, the paper highlights some implementation challenges that are context-specific to India, including the urgent need for large-scale, localised teacher professional development to equip the existing workforce with the pedagogical content knowledge needed to design and manage context-specific pedagogy.