The crisis within academia – The Hindu
There was a time when teaching was a calling. Classrooms were spaces of dialogue, not deadlines; teachers were mentors, not data points. But somewhere between institutional audits and student feedback forms, the pulse of academia has weakened.
Across universities and colleges, teachers are now expected to wear many hats: researcher, administrator, counsellor, public speaker, and much more. The classroom, once the core of intellectual life, has been reduced to a performative space where participation is judged by attendance, and creativity by compliance. Teaching no longer focuses on deep conversations or the slow development of ideas; instead, it’s about completing the syllabus and submitting forms.
The irony is that while the system demands excellence, it offers exhaustion. Contractual appointments have become the norm, leaving thousands of qualified educators living from one semester to the next, uncertain if their services will be renewed. Full-time teachers fare only slightly better
Students, too, are quietly changing. Many come to class distracted, fatigued by screens and shaped by an attention economy that rewards speed over reflection. Teachers are asked to “adapt”, which often translates to entertaining rather than educating. The expectation is that we must package knowledge attractively, like a product, and deliver it efficiently, without the discomfort of intellectual struggle. But learning, by nature, is meant to be slow, sometimes difficult, and almost always uncertain. When we deny that truth, education loses its meaning.
There is also a growing moral fatigue among teachers. The profession that once promised dignity now demands constant justification. Every decision, including a grade, a remark, a missed call, is scrutinised. Academic autonomy, once a cornerstone of higher education, is increasingly fragile. When pedagogy becomes dictated by policy rather than principle, teachers lose the space to think freely, and institutions lose the very soul that makes them relevant.
There is also the unspoken emotional toll. Many teachers in India juggle multiple jobs, commute long distances, and navigate the quiet humiliation of being seen as “disposable”. Mental health is rarely discussed in academic spaces, despite burnout becoming endemic. Even so, teachers show up every morning, masking fatigue with formality, carrying on because the work, despite everything, still matters.
Yet, certain moments of grace keep many of us going. A question asked with genuine curiosity… A student returning years later to say a book changed their life. The quiet sense of having lit a spark, even in one mind. These moments do not appear in performance reports, but they remind us why we entered the profession in the first place. Every teacher can recall that one student who returned years later to say, “Your class changed how I think”. Those moments, small and incandescent, are what hold the system together. They remind us that education is still a human act, not an institutional function. But such moments cannot survive on nostalgia alone.
The crisis of academia is not only about pay or workload. It is about purpose. Education has become transactional in a world obsessed with productivity. Teachers are caught between nostalgia for an older ideal and the ruthless pragmatism of the present. But perhaps the way forward lies not in lamenting what is lost, but in reclaiming what still matters: thoughtfulness, patience, and the courage to teach against the grain.
A society that neglects its teachers is a society that forgets how to think. If we want to heal our universities, we must begin by restoring trust in those who hold them together, not through metrics or surveillance, but through respect. Regularisation of temporary faculty, fair wages in private colleges, reduced administrative overload, and genuine pedagogical autonomy are not luxuries but necessities. When teachers are allowed to think, institutions begin to breathe again.
For it is still in the fragile, flickering exchange between teacher and student that the real work of education happens. And that, despite everything, is worth saving. The classroom remains, despite its cracks, one of the few places where transformation still feels possible. Amid the noise of reforms and rankings, we must remember this: a nation that forgets to care for its teachers forgets to care for its future.
sandrajozf@gmail.com
Published – November 23, 2025 04:51 am IST
