How ‘JNU-type’ hiring erodes learning across campuses

India’s universities have increased in number and size, and still, for many students, this expansion has not translated into better education. The country now has 1,289 universities, 48,246 colleges, and 15,221 standalone institutions, with student enrollment rising to 4.5 crore students, a 31.5% rise from 3.42 crore in 2014-15. However, in many of these institutions, the faculty hiring process is shifting away from decisions made by merit-based peer committees. Administrative bodies often intervene and overturn the committees’ decisions.

The sheer scale of the problem makes it difficult to tackle. No single central body can audit the thousands of departments that make recruitment decisions each year. Departments facing staff shortages and dealing with a combined student-teacher ratio of 24:1 across universities and colleges (exceeding the ideal 20:1 ratio) are under pressure to fill vacancies quickly. In States like Bihar and Jharkhand, this ratio exceeds 40, whereas in some parts of the South, it is less than 17; this disparity points towards institutional neglect instead of a uniform shortage across the country. Consequently, these institutions bypass time-consuming merit-based selection processes in favor of making ad-hoc or guest faculty appointments.

This erosion of academic standards disproportionately affects students who have the least capacity to compensate for it elsewhere. Students in leading Indian universities say that several professors have adequate credentials but they lack the dedication to teach, while others simply lack the qualifications required for the role.

The rules designed to curb this deviation are clearly laid out on paper. The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) ‘Regulations on Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers, 2018’ prescribe standards for every teaching rank.

For instance, an entry-level Assistant Professor is required to hold a postgraduate degree with at least 55% marks and must have qualified in the National Eligibility Test (NET), State Level Eligibility Test (SLET), or an equivalent examination. According to a 2021 notification from the Ministry of Education, a Ph.D. became mandatory for direct recruitment to Assistant Professor posts in universities, while colleges could continue to appoint candidates with a Master’s degree and NET as the minimum eligibility. For promotion to Associate Professor and Professor, the same UGC framework requires a minimum research score built from teaching experience and peer-reviewed publications, with the threshold for a full professorship set at 120 points.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 builds on this by requiring institutions to develop “clearly defined, independent and transparent processes and criteria for faculty recruitment,” and by recommending a tenure-track probation period in which performance is assessed through peer and student reviews, teaching innovations, research quality, professional development and service, rather than seniority alone. At the same time, NEP 2020 frames equitable access to quality higher education for socially and economically disadvantaged groups as a central goal, treating higher education as a pathway out of “cycles of disadvantage.” Distorted or patronage-driven recruitment directly undercuts these social-mobility ambitions.

In October 2025, the University Grants Commission (UGC) wrote to the Registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University regarding a specific flaw in the recruitment process.

In at least seven confirmed instances, a screening committee of subject experts had rejected certain candidates for failing to meet the requisite qualifications. However, the university’s Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), originally established to monitor teaching standards and not to conduct recruitment, reinstated them without informing the committee, and they were subsequently hired.

The IQAC can overturn the decision of a screening panel formed by peers because, administratively, it is closer to the Vice-Chancellor’s office than to the recruiting department, giving it the power to alter shortlists after subject experts have ruled on them. It is this structural imbalance, and not any single appointment, that has kept JNU under constant scrutiny and drawn protests from its Teachers’ Association.

It is harder to assess the classroom outcomes resulting from this compared to the appointments themselves, as the impact accumulates over years instead of appearing in a single report. A sociology postgraduate student at JNU said that faculty appointed before 2016 were excellent teachers and researchers, and alleged that not a single appointment made since then has lived up to the university’s earlier standards; they described the recent quality of teaching as “abysmal” and the research as “substandard.”

Students have raised two distinct concerns. Ananya, an undergraduate student at Delhi University, noted that while their permanent faculty members are “highly competent and knowledgeable,” they show “no interest in teaching,” forcing students to rely on informal online resources like YouTube. In contrast, guest faculty, who are paid per class and not on a fixed salary, “teach well and put in extra effort” because their earnings depend on it. She also acknowledged that some permanent faculty members still “teach sincerely and effectively”.

The impact is most detrimental in the realm of mentoring, as guiding a thesis or impartially evaluating an oral defence relies heavily on subject-matter expertise. A rigorous screening process ensures that this expertise is present, whereas informal or altered procedures offer no such guarantee.

Farah, a recent alumna of Kashmir University, noted, “The work in the department was mediocre, even though there were highly capable individuals who could have taught far better.” Consequently, she received no guidance in the specific field she wished to pursue.

Rohit, a postgraduate student at JNU, pointed to a departmental appointment where the selected candidate’s own supervisor allegedly sat on the selection panel, while other applicants were rejected simply because they had only just submitted their Ph.D. theses. Such disparities erode trust in mentoring relationships, even with faculty members appointed through standard procedures.

Priya, an undergraduate student at Delhi University’s Gargi College, shared that due to a shortage of staff, one has to guess every day whether a class will take place or not. She said, “Guest faculty appointments at Gargi College are delayed; students decide via informal groups whether the class will happen, and the class representative indicates on the official WhatsApp group that the entire class wants the session cancelled.”

Another, more serious issue is the genuine lack of competence, which is directly linked to the faculty recruitment process. This is evident from Divya’s testimony, a postgraduate student at Ambedkar University. She alleged ideological alignment behind a specific appointment, noting that the faculty member “lacked an understanding of the subject or the student-teacher relationship for which our university was known.”

While this sample is concentrated in Delhi-based universities, particularly the University of Delhi, and therefore cannot support definitive conclusions for the entire country, the trend in these responses aligns with information gathered from the JNU case and student interviews.

This is where the social cost is most acutely felt. A student with family resources can compensate for the shortcomings of an incompetent or absent teacher through private tuition or the help of an informal mentor outside the university; however, first-generation students from rural backgrounds generally cannot do so, and their education depends entirely on the faculty member assigned to them. Viewed from this perspective, corruption in recruitment is not merely an isolated administrative failure; rather, it acts as a tax on those least able to bear it, while those with alternatives quietly manage to evade this burden.