India’s higher-education system is large but poorly balanced. The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2021–22 counts roughly 1.6 million faculty members across universities and colleges. Yet nearly 68% are Assistant Professors, while Associate Professors form about 10% and Professors under 10%. The pyramid is steep and crowded at the base. Promotion is slow, authority is concentrated, and renewal becomes episodic rather than continuous.
This imbalance is reinforced by persistent vacancies. In centrally funded institutions—IITs, NITs, IIMs, IISERs, IIITs, and central universities—more than 36% of sanctioned faculty posts remain unfilled: 14,372 vacancies out of 39,822 positions, according to the data submitted by Ministry of Education to Parliament in 2023. Teaching and supervision do not pause. Institutions respond by hiring contract teachers, visiting faculty, industry experts, and retired academics. What began as contingency is now routine.
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Retirement is no longer an exit
Retirement today rarely marks withdrawal from productive work. Across advanced economies, the OECD records rising post-retirement participation in knowledge-intensive sectors. Indian data point in the same direction. The Periodic Labour Force Survey shows older professionals increasingly engaged in teaching, consulting, and research roles. Longer lives and better health make this both possible and, often, desirable.
Not all academic fields face the same renewal pressures. In frontier sciences and technology-driven disciplines, productivity is closely tied to rapid methodological change, making early- and mid-career scholars disproportionately important. In the humanities and law, long scholarly arcs and interpretive depth matter more. A uniform approach to post-retirement re-employment ignores these differences and risks inefficiency. Policy works best when it recognises variation rather than assuming homogeneity.
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From experience to entrenchment
Difficulties arise when post-retirement appointments slide from time-bound advisory roles into regular faculty positions, often without open competition. This is particularly visible in segments of the private university system. Accreditation reviews and internal assessments suggest such arrangements can consolidate influence within narrow networks, slow leadership turnover, and narrow opportunities for younger scholars. The issue is not the competence of senior academics, but the absence of clear institutional limits.
The consequences are felt most clearly by students. Delayed recruitment and ageing faculties tend to slow curriculum renewal, adoption of new research tools, and exposure to emerging fields. Where departments rely heavily on interim arrangements, mentoring becomes uneven and innovation episodic. The link is indirect but real: constrained faculty mobility ultimately weakens graduate preparedness and employability.
Labour economics helps explain why these effects persist. In sectors where capital is not the binding constraint—as in universities—allocation rules matter more than headcount. Research by Acemoglu and Autor shows that prolonged occupation of core roles can delay entry for younger cohorts. Ben-Porath’s human-capital model explains why younger academics often generate higher long-term returns through adaptability and technological uptake. Persistent exclusion leads to skill depreciation and lower aggregate productivity.
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Ambition vs practice at Indian universities
The National Education Policy 2020 calls for transparent hiring, merit-based promotion, and multigenerational campuses. Draft UGC regulations (2025) broaden evaluation criteria to include teaching innovation, digital scholarship, and community engagement. Implementation, however, remains uneven. Where governing bodies are weak, legacy practices endure beneath reformist language.
The problem also differs by institutional type. Public universities struggle with sanctioned posts, approval delays, and pension rules that discourage timely hiring. Private universities face weaker governance checks, founder influence, and incentives to retain familiar faculty rather than open competition. Treating both systems alike obscures where corrective action is actually needed.
Avoiding academic comfort zones
When institutions rely heavily on post-retirement faculty without succession planning, they create academic comfort zones—stable, predictable, and inward-looking. Such arrangements limit upward mobility, dampen incentives for pedagogical change, and weaken participatory governance. These outcomes reflect weak rules more than personal choice.
Evidence points to a workable compromise. Time-bound post-retirement roles, mentoring fellowships, doctoral supervision, and governance advisory positions preserve access to experience while keeping core faculty posts open to competitive entry. Fixed tenure limits, transparent recruitment cycles, and periodic workforce audits can align institutional practice with stated policy.
India’s higher-education future will be shaped less by the ambition of policy documents than by the discipline of their execution. Respect for experience and space for renewal are not competing objectives. Universities that design for orderly turnover will innovate more, attract better talent, and serve students more effectively. Comfort zones may feel stable, but they rarely produce excellence.
Dr Shrabani Mukherjee is Associate Professor, Economics Department, Shiv Nadar University, Chennai.
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References:
Acemoglu, D., & Autor, D. (2011). Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings. Handbook of Labor Economics, 4, 1043–1171.
Aghion, P., & Howitt, P. (1998). Endogenous growth theory. MIT Press.
AISHE. (2022). All India Survey on Higher Education 2021–22. Ministry of Education, Government of India.
Ben-Porath, Y. (1967). The production of human capital and the life cycle of earnings. Journal of Political Economy, 75(4), 352–365.
Blanchard, O., & Summers, L. (1986). Hysteresis and the European unemployment problem. NBER Macroeconomics Annual, 1, 15–78.
International Labour Organization. (2020). Global employment trends for youth.
Ministry of Education. (2023). Annual report. Government of India. https://www.education.gov.in
Ministry of Labour & Employment. (2024). India labour statistics. Government of India.
OECD. (2017). Pensions at a glance.
OECD. (2019). Education at a glance.