Undergraduate and Postgraduate Teaching: A Case for Equal Emphasis

I usually put a lot of emphasis in my posts on the need for as much emphasis on postgraduate education and research as on undergraduate teaching in Indian academia - particularly in private universities that have traditionally focused almost completely on undergraduate education.

In this post I want to highlight an imbalance in the other direction at many of our universities:

Many of our central and state government universities have their "main campuses" where faculty members exclusively teach postgraduate classes and guide Masters and Doctoral theses. And the undergraduate teaching load is essentially entirely transferred to the university's constituent and affiliated colleges where faculty members take on an insane amount of teaching load that can burn out even the most motivated of researchers!

This is not only one of the biggest factors behind the overall lukewarm and low productivity research culture in Indian academia - it also introduces a false dichotomy in academia in terms of responsibilities undertaken, performance evaluations and career growth prospects. The "main university" faculty members become some sort of VIPs who take a disproportionately low teaching load and then exhibit their higher research productivity.

The very same problem also exists in institutes such as IISc, TIFR and many other institutes under DAE and DST. "Professors" at these institutions engage themselves in minimal to zero undergraduate teaching throughout their careers. No surprises then that the number of postgraduate students they guide and the amount of research they produce is higher than many other institutes who are delivering on all three fronts: undergraduate, masters and doctoral.

This has to stop. If Nobel Laureates and Fields Medalists around the world have the time and energy to engage with all three levels of students, there is absolutely no reason why our professors can't find the time.

This is a shirking of academic responsibility - nothing else.

My most preferred academic model is the American model. Everyone shares responsibilities equally - the ranks of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor are simply indicative of academic maturity.