AsianScientist (Jan. 29, 2015) – For the past several years, there have been reports of serious faculty shortages at India’s higher education (HE) institutions. These shortages have even affected the nation’s premier institutions, including the central universities, the well-known Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
Explaining faculty shortages
There are two main reasons behind these shortages.
First, India’s HE system is in an overload mode. More than 30 million Indians study at HE institutions of various kinds and their numbers continue to rise. Furthermore, the government is determined to increase the gross enrollment ratio (GER) from approximately 21 percent (2012-13) to 30 percent by 2020. With the demand for higher education already high in absolute terms and growing rapidly, it is proving difficult to find sufficient numbers of qualified faculty.
Second, a weak supply side is adding the worsening of student-teacher ratio. Among other things, the HE system is not capable of turning out faculty fast enough to feed the shortages. Relatively few institutions offer master’s degrees and beyond. Furthermore, fewer young people are interested in taking up the profession.
Estimating faculty shortages
While all sorts of numbers in the range of 20 to 50 percent are commonly cited, it seems that the Indian government is not fully cognizant of the exact nature and scope of faculty shortages. It has fairly reliable data on a handful of premier institutions, notably those which are funded directly by the national government (such as central universities, the IITs and the IIMs), but not the rest i.e. the vast majority of HE institutions.
A large number of colleges and universities in the country are run by state governments, nearly all of which take a cavalier approach towards higher education. Many of these institutions are also cash-starved so that, even though they face faculty shortages, they are not hiring. Then there are private institutions—which are attended by over 60 percent of all students—whose owners and administrators prefer to manage with less, including faculty, since most of them are dedicated profit-seekers even though the HE sector is legally required to be non-profit.
Both state-run and private institutions, for different reasons, make do with low-paid and usually poor quality part-time/adjunct faculty. They are also reluctant, unlikely or incapable of providing accurate information about their faculty needs. As a result, even though faculty shortages are real, there are no reliable estimates on it.
Features of faculty shortages
Even a partially-successful solution requires a better understanding of the nature and scope of faculty shortages. A good start would be to identify its essential features.
- An overall shortage of faculty
- Greater shortage in some disciplines than in others
- Greater shortage at some locations than in others
- Artificial shortages
- The shortage of good quality teachers and researchers
There is an overall shortage of faculty across the nation’s HE institutions.
There is a greater shortage of faculty in some disciplines than in others. Shortages are known to be higher in ‘professional’ disciplines—particularly STEM disciplines and management—which are better-linked to industry, since the incentives for students to pursue graduate studies is significantly lower than seeking employment. However, if one factors in quality, the problem of faculty shortages is perhaps equally pronounced in the humanities, social sciences and other areas.
HE institutions at some locations have struggled to hire and retain qualified faculty, including some of the IITs and the IIMs.
This is a problem directly created by successive governments. With their unflinching commitment to improve access to higher education, governments have favoured creating new institutions in remote locations, including smaller towns in less developed Indian states, which have proved unattractive to both students and faculty.
As noted earlier, many state governments are held back my limited resources. So even though many state government-run HE institutions are in dire need of faculty, they are not hiring.
Smriti Irani, the minister responsible for education, has acknowledged that shortages are “more acute in the State universities and colleges” where many “States have actually imposed ban on recruitment of regular faculty.”
Another reason for artificial shortages is the separate existence of hundreds of research centres/think tanks and colleges/universities. Many well-qualified potential faculty members choose to work outside academia or at smaller research-focused institutions or think tanks to remain outside the highly-politicized university system. Furthermore, because there are few formal linkages between research centres/think tanks and universities, the knowledge and talent of hundreds of qualified potential faculty is left unutilized.
This is a universal problem across India’s HE sector.
Looking for solutions
To address the problem of faculty shortages, both the government and individual institutions have been looking at a variety of solutions, from extending the retirement age of aging faculty members to making greater use of massive open online courses or MOOCs.
Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the initiative to launch the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) which envisages bringing up to 1,000 US academics each year to teach at India’s universities for short periods. GIAN is being touted by some as a part of the solution to faculty shortages, at least for premier institutions.
However, a thoughtful and organized response to addressing the problem of faculty shortages requires, above all, a proper appreciation of the nature and scope of the problem. The government needs to have better data, including information on the break-up of faculty shortages across different states, disciplines, and institutions, without which proposed solutions can at best be partial or even less.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Parth Joshi/Flickr/CC.
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