A major shortage in teaching talent is paralyzing Indian higher education. The current strength of 8.2 lacs professors and faculty is 32 percent lower than the required number of 12 lacs. What’s even more worrying is that by 2020 the sector will need an additional faculty of 15 lacs to join its ranks.

Sadly, not only are we lacking in quantity of academic talent, but also in quality. India has more than 400 universities and 20000 colleges. Despite being among the largest higher education systems (number of institutions and students enrolled) in the world, only a handful of Indian Institutions are globally recognized. This is a reflection of the quality of academic staff along with other systemic failures in the education system.

These alarming statistics force us to ask the question – just how are we going to fill the gapping shortfall in quality faculties and professors in the country?

Our failure to attract the best talent to academics

One measure of quality of education offered in a country is the ability to attract the brightest talent into the sector. However, employment trends indicate that academics is no longer a preferred career choice with the large number of students graduating from the country’s higher educational institutions.

Global giants like Google and Facebook are increasingly recruiting from India, offering mega salary deals. The best of Indian talent has also been able to successfully integrate itself with top Fortune 500 companies. With industry soaking in the best, the pool of talented individuals available to join academics has steadily declined.

Indian academics has also failed to offer remuneration prospects similar to those being offered by global universities which have also become a destination for some of India’s brightest minds.

In India the pride associated with academia has been lost, unlike other countries such as Singapore and Finland which go to great lengths to bestow enormous prestige on those associated with the profession.

Of course tackling the overall crisis would require sweeping changes in the institutional framework by the government, greater partnership with the private education sector as well as greater involvement of the industry.

But a crucial remedial step will be making academics an attractive destination of choice and this is where ‘Star Professors’ can play a major role.

Who are ‘Star Professors’?

Globally we are seeing the emergence of ‘Star Professors’. These academicians of high repute have gained superstar statuses for their ability to present educational content in a manner that almost seems like an entertainment to audiences. They have courses and programs designed around their knowledge base and draw in huge crowds at colleges, seminars and events.

Both educational institutions and big corporations seek out star-professors and are willing to pay them ‘top dollars’ for academic and consulting / advisory roles. Their influence is not limited to the academic silo. These media savvy star professors are opinion leaders on socio, economic and political issues impacting their countries and indeed the world.

Star professors are trailblazers that inspire others to follow in their footsteps.  Not only do they encourage existing professors to better themselves, but more importantly they act as magnets for young minds to join the academic field. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the future of academics depends on star professors.

Indian Education desperately needs Star Professors

We Indians love our stars.  From movies to cricket to business, names immediately come to mind; from a Shah-Rukh Khan to M S Dhoni to Narayan Murthy. These people represent the best in their fields and have become powerful brands in themselves.

Unfortunately, we have failed to attract and develop academic talent that has anywhere near this kind of star power. Indian higher education is in desperate star professors’ as symbols of the successes that academics can offer, and for attracting young talent in much larger numbers, across myriad fields of study, than is presently happening.

Attracting and Promoting Star Professors

Indian educational institutions compete on an international stage when it comes to attracting and retaining the best academic talent.

The global economic slowdown, which has put a strain on research budgets, salary increments and general standards of living, may well work in favor of India regaining preference with a section of the Indian Diaspora currently based in International Universities. Salary is an important consideration, but is not the only factor that can draw top Indian academic talent back to its shores.

Teaching faculty need to be given compensation comparable with the best in the country, allowed wide-decision making powers (which includes course content, student assessment policies, courses offered and budget allocations) and conferred highly publicized recognition for outstanding work. Indian institutes can attract faculties by offering them faculty fellowships, offering research grants and made-to-order research facilities.

Indian institutions looking to create and attract Star Professors will need to have a dedicated talent management strategy towards –

• Investing in young academic talent, which includes providing international standard training opportunities and compensation during the training period
• Providing reputed professors with research amenities and autonomy in decision making they enjoy at global universities
• Promoting individual professors on their faculty as ‘personal brand names’ and specialists in the field across platforms ( advertising, social media, education forums and industry)
• Institutionalizing a  framework for recognition and reward for academic achievements

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The trend is growing leaps and bounds in last few years of foreign academics joining Indian institutions. Most of foreign faculty joining Indian educational institutions is of Indian origin but there are many academics of foreign origin also coming to India and working here as faculty and helping Indian students getting a diverse global perspective. A very generic question arise in our minds is why foreign faculty joining Indian Universities leaving their fat pay packets and environment of top ranked universities from developed hemisphere of Earth, where they get all facilities as per international standards, mostly these foreign universities have set benchmarks of education and research.

There are a lot of reasons that pull foreign faculty to Indian universities, some of them being growing opportunities in Indian education institutions; their earnest desire to give back to home country; growing competition in developed education systems; willingness to work in developing country and India provides ample opportunities for being a developing country with distinct view; alma mater calling; culture calling; and many times it’s their personal reasons, like, aging parents, spouse’s workplace, rearing of children in India, and so on.

Opportunities in Indian education:

In India, there is dearth of academics in educational institutions. This shortage is acute if we look at higher education sector more than 30 %, and further aggravates when we aspire for good academics as faculty. The search for good faculty with diverse perspective leads universities to foreign faculty willing to help Indian educational institutions bringing more research oriented outlook by working for them in their Indian campus. Indian institutions also deviate from their normal working structures at-times to attract international faculties. Faculty gets a lot of scope for mentoring and research in Indian universities. They may not be paid as per globally top ranked universities and institutions, but have a lot of scope to satiate their academic thirst.

Higher competition in developed education systems

Nowadays, in developed countries’ education system it is getting difficult to obtain faculty position in top educational institutions for non-local academics. Government of developed countries have even reduced funding to educational institutions has made it tough to become a tenured professor for academics; and has increased competition amongst academics. In developed countries faculty has very hectic schedules of teaching and conferences that leave no space for research and other academic interests.

Give back to home country

There is a good number of foreign academics wants to return favour to their homeland i.e., India. After, getting global exposure and feeling of accomplishment on international platform, they are longing to enhance the level of Indian higher education and research at par with world-class universities. Now that even Indian institutes are also willing to have foreign faculty for visiting, part-time or full-time engagement, this compliments the faculty’s choice well.

Culture calling

India has a varied culture. Many international faculty of Indian origin have deep seated grains of culture that do not allow them to adapt to culture of foreign land. After spending time at foreign land foreign faculty get nostalgic, and found themselves no good fit in foreign culture, starts looking for options of their stature in Indian educational institutions to satiate their desire to be attached to their roots.

Wants to work in developing economy

Faculty of top ranked global universities researching on developing economies or on India in specific, look forward to take teaching assignments in India to get more clear perspective about their topic of research. They feel that India has good prospects of research on developing world. For research on developing country topics, even foreign faculty of foreign origin are choosing Indian institutions to work with. They find most favourable environment for such researches and studies in Indian universities.

Alma mater calling

Foreign academics of Indian origin, after satisfying their desire of being faculty in top global universities feel obliged to their alma mater back in India. They want to return favour by mentoring students of their alma mater or by becoming mentor to their alma mater itself. These international faculties join Indian educational institutions as visiting faculty; part-time faculty; full-time faculty and in some cases as advisors to the Indian institute as well.

Personal reasons

At times foreign faculty of Indian origin return for personal reasons, like their parents require them at the eve of their life; some foreign academics return for the future of their children i.e. they want their children to grow in their home country and culture, inculcate same values and traditions as their own. In some cases, their spouse is in India or spouse has work base in India and parents are also in India which pulls them to look for assignment with Indian educational institutions.

There must be many other reasons for foreign faculty to move with their bag and baggage to India, personal; professional; social; academic; emotional or any or all of them, result of their movement help them satisfy their mental faculties and students of these institutions have different viewpoint and international exposure from faculty. Institutions get international perspective while deciding about the syllabus and research and studies. It is more of a win-win situation for faculty, institution and students as well as economy as added faculty reduces the gap of faculty crunch.

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