In the previous column (April 17), I summed up one key finding of the report The State of Working India, 2026 (SWI26), released by Aziz Premji University, Bengaluru, regarding who gets to study what in college. In this column, I will sum up another key aspect of the report: the quality of higher education in India as reflected in the student-teacher ratio in colleges across the country.

The teacher-student ratio is a key component of learning at every level of education. After all, it is well established that education is best imparted in person. Thus, the physical presence of a teacher in a classroom is a key aspect of how much and how well students learn in any institution. Higher education is no exception. In this context, the student-teacher ratio in a discipline in a higher education institution becomes an approximation for the quality of education imparted.

Prescribed norms versus reality

In India, the All India Council for Technical Education prescribes norms for faculty requirement across technical disciplines — engineering, technology, design, applied arts and crafts, management and computer applications — for both undergraduate and graduate courses. At the postgraduate level, generally, there are fewer students per teacher. Therefore, the norm ranges from 1:25 to 1:15, that is, 25 to 15 students per teacher. For non-technical courses, the UGC prescribes a ratio of one teacher per 20 students.

While the link between the student-teacher ratio and learning........

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