INDIA trails behind several countries including Brazil and China in terms of student-teacher ratio in higher education segment, a Government report has revealed. The 24:1 ratio of India is lower than 19:1 in Brazil and China. Aong the eight countries compared, India’s student-ratio has turned out to be the lowest - against Sweden’s 12:1, Britain’s 16:1, Russia’s 10:1 and Canada’s 9:1.

 

 

This not only results in overburdening a small group of teachers but also adversely affects the quality of academic research taken up by them, says a Human Resource Development Ministry report. “A low student-teacher ratio indicates the burden on a single teacher of teaching multiple students as well as the lack of time that each student gets. Apart from this simplistic effect, in an institution of higher learning, a smaller number of overburdened teachers are also unable to pursue any research or encourage their students to do so. “Consequently, the culture of questioning and reasoning cannot be inculcated as a part of higher education in most institutions,” the Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP) report said.

 

 

The faculty shortage have worsened over the time due to increasing enrolment rate of the students and low faculty recruitment in the higher education institutes. As per the ministry’s All India Survey on Higher Education statistics, while the student enrolment in higher education institutes have increased from 32.3 million in 2013-14 to 36.6 million in 2017-18, the total number of teachers have declined from 13,67,535 to 12,84,755.

 

 

According to estimates, the country’s higher education sector - central, state and private universities - is facing a shortfall of over 5 lakh teachers. “India is short of professors, with 6,600 posts vacant in central universities, a shortfall of 33 per cent. In IITs and state universities, 35 per cent and 38 per cent vacancies need to be filled respectively,” the report stated.