India's higher education struggling with dwindling teacher headcount

Teacher strength declines for second straight year, pupil-teacher ratio deteriorates

The number of teachers in graduate and the post-graduate colleges and universities declined for a second consecutive year from 1.52 million in 2015-16 to 1.37 in 2017-18, government’s latest survey on higher education institutions shows.

The pupil-teacher ratio, or the number of students that a teacher takes care of, deteriorated from 20 to 25 in the same period. This comes at a time when the number of universities has steadily increased from 799 to 903.

Though the number of colleges has seen a reduction in the last two years, the report says that the decline is due to deletion of colleges which did not register under AISHE, and not closure of colleges. Meanwhile, colleges per million population has remained stagnant at 2.8.

The ministry of human resource development (HRD) released the All India Survey on Higher Education for 2017-18, on the occasion of Guru Pournima, at the sidelines of the national conference of vice-chancellors and directors in Delhi on Friday.

Raising the staccato on the efforts taken by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in reforming the education situation in the country through enhanced coordination between departments and “breaking the barriers”, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar concluded: “We lack in quality and innovation and we have to think together, act together and take it forward.”

The gross enrolment ratio for higher education, which is defined as the proportion of population in the age group 18-23 pursuing higher education, improved in its gradual pace from 25.2 per cent in 2016-17 to 25.8 per cent in 2017-18.

The decline in number of teachers is serious especially when data has shown the severe teacher vacancy in various streams. As much as 35 per cent teacher posts are vacant in central universities.

Even when the ad-hoc, adjunct and visiting faculty—who are not permanent teachers—are added to the fold, 19 per cent positions still remain vacant in central universities, the committee on HRD in Rajya Sabha noted with concern in its report on demand for grants for 2018-19.

Faculty vacancy in Indian Institutes of Technology is 34 per cent, while that in engineering colleges—which are seeing a decline in preference — is 5 per cent. Continuing the trend, enrolment in engineering declined in 2017-18 as well.

Bucking the trend of the average, the course Bachelor in Education (B.Ed), which produces teachers for secondary school and junior colleges, has seen a 25 per cent jump enrolment in 2017-18, after a 57 per cent jump in 2016-17.

Medicine, science graduate programmes and business administration (BBA and MBA) are witnessing a continually increasing preference. However, the management stream is also witnessing a reducing sex ratio, along with engineering, shows the AISHE report.

On a positive note, the social profile of teachers improves marginally with the proportion of teachers falling in backward classes improved from 41 to 44 per cent.

On the top tier of higher education, the number of students enrolled for PhD has touched 161,000, at 0.5 per cent of total enrolments in higher education in India. PhDs awarded in 2017-18 has jumped 20 per cent. However, students enrolled in Masters of Philosophy, or M Phil, has declined in 2017-18.

It must be noted that though the national averages are either improving or deteriorating in certain indicators, wide variations exist among states.

For example, the average number of students per college remains as high as 1,686 and 1,786 in Bihar and Jharkhand, putting immense pressure on teachers and college administration. The pupil-teacher ratio is above 50 in the two states.

The minister and secretaries said that three focus areas, promotion of research and innovation, improving quality of education and teacher training and capacity building are the top priority of the government.

The educational information available in the report covers situation up to September 30, 2017, while the financial information is up to March 31, 2018.