India has one of the lowest teacher-student ratios: expert

New Delhi, Nov 7 : The number of teachers in India is one of the lowest in the world and is generally a last career resort, an expert said at the sixth Higher Education Summit here Saturday.

Shyam Sunder, faculty member of the Yale School of Management, said that many steps have to be taken to improve the quality and quantity of teachers.

"India has one of the lowest ratio of teachers. In the US, it's 3,200 teachers per million people, in the Caribbean it's 1,500, in the Arab countries it's 800 and in India it's 456 teachers per million people," Sunder said at the summit.

"For a variety of reasons, teaching is not a very attractive career option to youngsters these days. It mostly comes as a last resort to many. Therefore we are not getting the best of the lot," he added.

According to Sunder, the central government should take teachers out of the "pay commission dependent salary mode" and work at making teaching a more attractive option.

"It's alright to say that you need to have passion to be a teacher. But a government school teacher has to run his or her family too. Teachers' pay must be made competitive with other industries to make it a viable option for youngsters," he said.

"Also, education experts, the government and other stakeholders must work at making career options like research and higher education more attractive. You can't have just doctors and MBAs running the country," Sunder said.