Can India truly aspire to become a Vishwa Guru when it continues to grapple with teacher shortages, overcrowding and inadequate learning outcomes?

Every September 5, India honours Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan - philosopher, Oxford scholar, and the Republic’s first Vice-President and second President. When students proposed celebrating his birthday after he became President in 1962, he asked instead that the date be observed as Teachers’ Day, insisting teachers deserved to rank among the nation’s finest minds. It is a fitting origin story for a country that has long seen itself as a wellspring of learning for the world.

That reverence is not sentimental excess. Teachers do more than deliver a syllabus; they build the........

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