India, November 14, 2026: The silent cost of India’s research boom on classrooms. The Hindu reported the development in a detailed account.

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Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. The higher education system must have a plan to make sure that faculty members do not treat teaching like a burden. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto ​T he current higher education system is doing what it is supposed to do, but the primary question is: can one person be made to perform two demanding professional functions simultaneously and indefinitely without costs?.

There is enough evidence to say that the answer is no. This is costing us research integrity, classroom quality, and faculty well-being, which is becoming visible in aggregated data now. The University Grants Commission (UGC) norms require Indian assistant professors to fulfil at least 16 hours of direct teaching each week (UGC, 2018).

Most of these rules may or may not apply to many private academic institutions in India. Additionally, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) framework commonly determines institutional rankings and eligibility for UGC funding, prioritising research output and publication volume as core indicators of institutional quality (NAAC, 2023). Both demands rest on the shoulders of the same faculty member.

But where is the focus on teaching quality?. India produces over 278,000 scientific articles each year, placing us as the third-highest research output country (Times Higher Education, 2023). Fake peer reviews make up about 33% of total research retractions in India.

This is followed by data fraud at about 17.2% and plagiarism at 14.8% (Sharma, 2024). Current systems require professors to have a minimum of 7-10 Scopus-indexed publications to be eligible for promotions at different levels. Some private institutions have their own modified rules.

This builds structural pressure towards volume over academic rigour. One can easily say that these numbers are not much, but it takes a great deal of time, energy, collaboration, and resources to have even a handful of quality publications. Tying career advancement to publication count, while critical at different academic junctures, needs to be taken with caution.

There is no equivalent national metric to observe teaching quality. What is beyond the scope of measurement is often skipped, which predictably leads to the absorption of any residual time once research obligations have been completed. The fact that teaching quality cannot be measured, cited, or indexed does not make it any less important.

Teaching is as important as research, if not more. Professors directly shape young minds and lives through daily engagement inside and outside classrooms. While it is very important that we don’t just disseminate knowledge but also create it, are we sure we are doing justice when it comes to disseminating knowledge to our students?.

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