Why continuous learning, mentoring, and capability building are essential for the future of higher education.
India's higher education system is producing more graduates than ever before. What it is not producing — at the pace it needs to — is the faculty to teach them. Vacancies in prestigious schools of management run above 30 percent, and in tier-two institutions they regularly exceed half. The shortage is not just about numbers. It is about the kind of faculty India needs next: people who can integrate frontier industry practice with rigorous academic frameworks, and who can do it for a generation of learners growing up in an AI-saturated world.
The conventional pipeline — long PhDs followed by gradual entry into academia — was never going to keep up. It was built for an earlier era, when industry change was slower and the gap between practice and theory was smaller. Today, by the time a doctoral cohort completes its dissertation, the industry it studied has often reorganised itself two or three times. Faculty development needs a second, parallel pipeline: one that brings senior practitioners — CXOs, founders, policy professionals — into the classroom with both practitioner authority and academic credibility.
From credential to capability
India's National Education Policy 2020 names this directly with its vision of Professors of Practice — experienced industry professionals brought into faculty roles to teach, mentor, and conduct applied research. The policy is right. The implementation is harder. A senior leader stepping into the lectern needs more than goodwill: they need pedagogical scaffolding, case-writing skill, AI-aware course design, and a credential that institutions can recognise.
That is what serious faculty development looks like in this decade. Not a one-time orientation, but a continuous arc of mentoring, capability building, and peer scholarship. Not a credential bolted on, but a programme that converts existing expertise into transferable teaching practice. Not a private hobby, but a system the institution invests in.
What institutions can do now
- Invest in pracademic pathways.
- Treat pedagogy as a discipline.
- Make research a faculty habit.
- Build mentoring networks.
The faculty crisis is not a hiring problem. It is a capability problem. India's higher education future depends on whether we treat it that way.
