Investing in developing India’s higher-ed faculty

India today has more than 1.6 million faculty members teaching over 40 million students across higher education institutions.

- Shreyasi Singh

Yet a nationwide study conducted in 2025 revealed a striking gap at the heart of this system: Nearly one in three faculty members reported receiving no formal training on how to teach before entering the classroom, and among those who did, almost 70% found that training ineffective.

The Jetri Faculty Worklife Report 2025, based on responses from 547 faculty members across public and private institutions, finds faculty being pulled between teaching, research, and administrative work, with nearly a quarter spending most of their time on tasks they believed mattered more to institutions than to students. Mentoring students consistently emerged as one of the most meaningful aspects of academic work, yet also the activity most likely to be crowded out.