India Is Building More Classrooms in Higher Education But Who Will Teach in Them?

India’s higher education system has been on an expansion path over the last decade. More universities, colleges, students and even teachers have contributed to this growth, making it easy to celebrate. But a report on the state of higher education in India since 2014 by SBI Research brings out a less cheerful finding: has India’s capacity to teach kept pace with this kind of expansion?

Expansion of Higher Education in India

The report, The State of Higher Education in India since 2014, released on 30 September 2026, says the number of teachers in higher education rose from 13.68 lakh in 2013-14 to 17.32 lakh in 2023-24, an increase of about 27%. During the same period, the higher education system expanded to 1,289 universities, 48,246 colleges and 15,221 standalone institutions, with total enrolment reaching about 4.5 crore students in 2023-24. 

The SBI Research report also cites an earlier parliamentary snapshot of centrally funded higher education institutions. In March 2023, 41,351 teaching posts had been sanctioned, of which 14,042 were vacant, a vacancy rate of 34%. The cited vacancy rates were 39% for IITs, 33% for central universities, 31% for IIMs, 29% for NITs and 54% for IIITs; professor-level vacancies were particularly high in the same dataset.

That should not be read as a live vacancy count for 2026. The Ministry of Education says centrally funded institutions had filled 18,757 faculty positions through mission-mode recruitment by 23 May 2026, while also noting that vacancies arise continuously as institutions expand and staff retire, resign or move on.

But the report’s essential finding cuts to the heart of the matter: India’s approach to higher education growth has been focused on expansion as captured by institutions created, seats filled, etc., but the next frontier must be one of capacity, specifically the availability of teachers.

A New College Is Only the Beginning of Expansion

A new university, a new course and a larger intake are easy to see in the statistics, but good teaching is harder to measure because students experience it. A student joining an IIT, NIT, central university or IIM is paying for an ecosystem of quality in which individuals can teach, mentor, evaluate and be available for discussion. Teaching and interaction are critical factors that determine the actual value of education that such a student receives, and the ability of the institution to deliver this value in turn rests upon the staffing levels and availability of teachers. That is why faculty recruitment is such an important education issue, even if it has more often than not been a staffing or personnel statistics issue.

As the SBI Research report highlights, the pupil-teacher ratio in regular higher education institutions was 23 in 2023-24. It also underlines the disparities between states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa reported a ratio as low as 14, while Bihar and Jharkhand reported as high as 57 and 48, respectively. 

While an average is useful, it can be easy to miss the variations on the ground (for a student, the difference between a ratio of 14 and 57 could be the difference between a teacher spending a lot of time on an individual student, and not so much).

When it comes to choosing a university, the difference between a good and a bad student-teacher ratio can be critical for parents: a reputed university may have a reasonable ratio, but the actual experience of the student may well depend on the faculty at the department-level, the size of the course, the staff available and their willingness to engage in mentoring. The name on the college letter may be familiar and reassuring, but it is the teachers in the specific discipline and their availability, the staff for tutorials, laboratories, seminars and project supervision that directly impact the student’s day-to-day learning.

The Professor Shortage Deserves Special Attention

The 56.2% professor-level vacancy figure cited in the SBI Research report is particularly noteworthy; it comes from the same earlier parliamentary dataset and should therefore be read as evidence of the scale of the staffing gap at that point, rather than as a current 2026 vacancy rate. Vacancies at this level have a direct bearing on the ability of universities to offer quality research-led education as well as guide students at the postgraduate and post-doctoral levels.

A university may continue to function with vacancies at the professor-level, but its research and innovative potential may take a hit, and the quality of student interactions may be diminished, particularly in research-intensive disciplines.

This is especially pertinent at a time when India is looking to leverage its higher education system to graduate to new levels in research, innovation, and industry linkages – all of which will require substantial investment in senior faculty with the bandwidth and institutional support to pursue these initiatives. A university cannot create a culture of research on its own, without the manpower, brainpower, time and incentive to do so.

Students Should Start Asking a Different Question

University rankings and placement statistics dominate conversations about higher education choices among students and their parents. They serve as handy yardsticks to compare institutions, and can provide a useful basis to make a choice. But faculty strength should also be a consideration when it comes to choosing a university, course and career path.

Students should start asking deeper questions about the faculty in the department they are considering, including the availability of research opportunities in their area of interest and the teaching staff’s bandwidth and engagement. This is especially pertinent for students looking to pursue research-oriented courses.

When it comes to laboratories and infrastructure, a well-equipped department is a given, but it helps to enquire whether there is academic expertise that can utilize this infrastructure to its maximum potential.

Computer science students, for instance, should look beyond laboratories with cutting-edge equipment and examine whether the department has faculty with the technical knowledge and teaching skills to make that infrastructure useful.

Expansion Needs a Human Measure

The report also highlights a broader policy question. The report also recommends raising the share of government expenditure devoted to higher education to 1.5%, alongside greater investment in research and development and stronger university-industry collaboration. 

India has become very good at counting institutions, seats and enrollment. The next stage should be better at counting academic capacity. Students do not experience a university as a number of sanctioned posts; they experience it through the lecturer who explains a difficult concept twice , the professor who is reading a research proposal carefully, the mentor who sees the potential in a student and the teacher who gives time to answer a question after class. Such moments usually don’t show up in rankings but are the places where real learning happens.

The SBI Research report provides a helpful reminder to India of how many students it can admit to higher education and how many are receiving good quality higher education.  So, the next great expansion of Indian higher education should therefore be measured in something students can feel: enough good/ true teachers to make every additional seat worth having.