The Great Indian Academic Fiction, Why We Must Separate Teaching from Research

The Great Indian Academic Fiction, Why We Must Separate Teaching from Research

Introduction: The Foundational Fiction

Indian academia operates on a foundational fiction: that every university faculty member is, at once, a brilliant researcher and an inspired teacher. This assumption—baked into hiring norms, promotion criteria, and institutional rankings—is not merely unrealistic; it is actively damaging higher education in India.

The university system today demands that anyone wishing to build a career as a college teacher must first earn a PhD, then continuously publish research to qualify for increments and career advancement. On the surface, this seems reasonable. After all, shouldn’t a teacher be knowledgeable? Shouldn’t a researcher be able to communicate? But as Anmol Jain argues with surgical precision, this logic produces a quiet catastrophe—an ecosystem of substandard research, predatory journals, ghost-written dissertations, and demoralized faculty who are forced to perform roles for which they are neither trained nor temperamentally suited.

The solution is radical in its simplicity: a structural separation between teaching and research tracks within Indian higher education. Let us unpack why this is necessary, what the current system has broken, and how reform might look.

Part 1: Two Distinct Vocations – Temperament, Skills, and Relationships with Knowledge

The Researcher’s Temperament

A researcher must possess:

• The patience to sit with uncertainty for months or years.

• The rigour to challenge existing ideas, including one’s own.

• The drive to produce original thought, often in isolation.

• The ability to tolerate repeated failure (experiments fail, papers get rejected, hypotheses are disproven).

• A relationship with knowledge that is generative—creating new knowledge where none existed before.

This is a rare set of qualities. It requires deep focus, extended periods of uninterrupted time, and a willingness to work outside the spotlight of classroom applause.

The Teacher’s Temperament

A good teacher, by contrast, must be able to:

• Break complex ideas into digestible parts without losing accuracy.

• Hold a room—manage attention, energy, and group dynamics.

• Adapt to different learners (fast, slow, anxious, distracted, gifted).

• Sustain curiosity in young minds that may not yet see the value of the subject.

• Build a course with pedagogical coherence, assessment logic, and learning outcomes.

The teacher’s relationship with knowledge is curatorial and translational—taking existing knowledge and making it accessible, engaging, and memorable for diverse learners.

“There is no reason to assume these qualities naturally coexist in the same person. It is, in fact, rather rare.”

This is not a value judgment. It is an observation of human diversity. Some of the world’s greatest researchers have been notoriously poor teachers. Some of the most inspiring teachers have never written a research paper after their PhD. Both are valuable. But the Indian system refuses to acknowledge this distinction.

Part 2: The Perverse Incentive Structure – Substandard Research and Predatory Journals

The Flood of Useless Papers

By forcing every faculty member to publish research—regardless of their aptitude or interest—the system has created a perverse incentive structure. Those who are natural teachers but lack research aptitude are compelled to produce academic papers anyway. The result is a flood of substandard research that no one reads, no one cites, and no one benefits from.

This is not harmless. It consumes time that could have been spent improving teaching materials, mentoring students, designing better assessments, or engaging with the local community. It demoralizes faculty who know they are producing rubbish but are trapped by promotion criteria. And it trains PhD students to value quantity over quality, because that is what the system rewards.

The Predatory Journal Industry

The most poisonous consequence of this incentive structure is the thriving predatory journal industry in India. These are journals that:

• Charge a fee for publication (“article processing charges”).

• Publish without meaningful peer review (sometimes no review at all).

• Accept clearly substandard or even plagiarized papers.

• Often claim false impact factors or fake editorial boards.

Jain notes that predatory journals are not a fringe phenomenon in India. They are a structural response to a structural demand. When promotion depends on a certain number of publications, and when genuine research takes years, the market will supply faster, cheaper, lower-quality alternatives. Faculty pay, journals profit, and academic integrity collapses.

Ghost-Written Dissertations and PhD Mills

Add to this the well-documented trade in PhD degrees and ghost-written dissertations. There are consultants who will write an entire thesis for a fee. There are universities that award PhDs with minimal oversight. There are “research supervisors” who have never supervised genuine research. All of this—Jain calls it institutionalised academic dishonesty—is sustained by a system that asks people to do what they are not built to do.

Part 3: The Researcher’s Burden – Teaching Loads and Broken Attention

The Myth of the Teaching-Research Synergy

The conventional defense of the current system is that teaching and research reinforce each other: a researcher brings new knowledge into the classroom, and teaching clarifies a researcher’s thinking. There is some truth to this at the elite level, in small-group settings, with advanced students. But for the vast majority of Indian faculty—teaching 15-20 hours per week to large undergraduate classes—this supposed synergy is a myth.

Teaching-Heavy Schedules Destroy Research Time

Good research demands uninterrupted time to read, to think, to write, to revise. It requires blocks of several hours—ideally days or weeks—without constant context-switching. A teaching-heavy semester structures exactly the opposite kind of time: fragmented, reactive, and scheduled in 50-minute bursts.

Jain writes: “A teaching-heavy semester structures exactly this kind of [uninterrupted] time.” Wait—this requires careful reading. He means that teaching-heavy semesters prevent uninterrupted time. The way it is phrased in the original is ironic. The point: the very structure of an undergraduate teaching load—multiple courses, exam papers, office hours, extracurricular duties—makes sustained research almost impossible for faculty without dedicated research time.

Students Also Suffer

Meanwhile, students in their classes suffer. Not because researchers are bad people, but because a mind deeply immersed in a specialized research problem may struggle to return to the basics of a discipline. A professor working on exoplanetology may find it tedious to explain Newton’s laws for the hundredth time. A researcher of postcolonial theory may lose patience with undergraduate confusion about basic terms. The researcher’s mind is oriented forward, toward the frontier; the undergraduate teacher’s mind must be oriented backward, toward foundations. These are different orientations, and forcing the same person to hold both simultaneously often results in neither being done well.

Part 4: Institutional Rankings – The “Billionmetricoutput” Trap

How Rankings Distort Behaviour

University rankings—both domestic (NIRF) and global (QS, THE, Shanghai)—heavily weight research output: number of publications, citation counts, h-indices, faculty with PhDs, research income. These metrics pressure institutions to require all faculty to publish, regardless of their actual role or skill set.

Jain uses a telling term: “billionmetricoutput”—a focus on quantity over quality, on countable outputs rather than conceptual depth. Institutions adopt research strategies that tilt toward “publication countries” (high-output, low-scrutiny venues) rather than pursuing genuine intellectual contribution.

Unethical Practices Encouraged

The rankings game encourages several unethical practices:

• Unwarranted institutional self-citations: Journals and universities pressure authors to cite papers from the same institution to boost impact factors.

• Dubious collaborations: Adding eminent names as co-authors to papers they did not contribute to, to improve acceptance chances.

• Publication cartels: Groups of researchers agreeing to cite each other’s work excessively.

• Salami slicing: Breaking a single study into many “least publishable units” to multiply publication count.

Kishore Paknikar is quoted correctly: Indian research strategies tilt “toward publication counts rather than conceptual depth.” Many Indian institutions have begun boycotting certain rankings, as reported by the Indian Express, recognizing that the game is rigged.

The Longer Battle: Ranking Reform

Jain acknowledges that rankings could be reformed—to incorporate teaching quality metrics, learning outcomes, graduate employability, and student satisfaction—and to bring transparency to evaluation parameters. But that is a longer battle. In the interim, Indian universities cannot wait. They need a structural separation between teaching and research tracks now, independent of what rankings do.

Part 5: The Proposed Solution – Two Tracks, Equal Respect

What Structural Separation Means

The proposal is straightforward:

Both tracks must be seen as equally legitimate and equally rewarded. Neither should be considered a lesser calling. A master teacher who transforms thousands of young lives over a career is no less valuable than a researcher who publishes a handful of paradigm-shifting papers.

International Precedent

Such a division is not radical. Many countries maintain lecturer tracks for gifted educators, while research-track positions (assistant professor → associate → full professor) are reserved for those whose primary contribution is knowledge production. For example:

• United Kingdom: Teaching-focused “Teaching Fellows” and research-focused “Lecturers/Readers/Professors.”

• United States: Non-tenure-track “Teaching Professors” with promotion ladders parallel to tenure-track research faculty.

• Germany: Akademischer Rat (academic councillor) teaching positions distinct from Professor research positions.

India has already experimented with this in limited forms—the UGC’s “Assistant Professor (Contract)” or “College Lecturer” positions—but these have been treated as inferior, temporary, and poorly paid. The reform requires equal pay, equal status, equal career progression.

Part 6: Reforming Entry Requirements – The PhD Barrier and Pedagogical Training

The Teaching Track: No PhD Required

Those entering academia through the teaching track should not be required to hold a PhD. Why? Because a PhD is a research degree. It trains for research. It does not train for teaching. Requiring a PhD for teaching positions is like requiring a medical degree to drive a taxi—both require some general intelligence, but the specific skills are different.

What teaching-track faculty must hold is a rigorous certification in pedagogy—a qualification that currently does not exist in India at the university level. Schoolteachers have B.Ed. and D.El.Ed. University lecturers have nothing. The assumption that subject-matter knowledge automatically translates into teaching ability has no basis in evidence. Some of the most brilliant scholars are dreadful teachers. Some of the best teachers have only a master’s degree but a gift for explanation and empathy.

The Research Track: PhD with Quality Judgment

Those entering the research track must demonstrate research capability—a PhD, yes, but one judged on the quality of ideas, not the quantity of publications. A thesis that makes a genuine conceptual contribution, even if it leads to only one or two papers, should be valued more than a thesis that is sliced into five forgettable papers.

The UGC-NET: A Relic That Needs Reimagining

The UGC-National Eligibility Test (NET) is currently required for almost all university teaching positions. Jain calls it a relic—and for good reason. As currently structured, the NET tests neither research aptitude (it is a multiple-choice exam of factual recall) nor teaching ability (there is no practical demonstration of teaching). It tests memory and exam-taking skill—a peculiar qualification for either a researcher or a teacher.

What might replace it?

• For teaching-track: A portfolio-based assessment including a teaching demonstration, a course design proposal, and a pedagogical knowledge test.

• For research-track: A research proposal evaluation, a written exam testing research methodology and domain depth, and an interview focused on research vision.

Part 7: Objections and Responses

Objection 1: “Teaching-track faculty will be treated as second-class.”

Response: This depends entirely on policy design. If teaching-track faculty are paid equally, have equal promotion opportunities (e.g., Senior Teacher → Master Teacher → Distinguished Teacher), and are included in governance structures, they will not be second-class. The problem in existing “lecturer” positions is not the track itself but the status and pay differential. Equal legitimacy requires equal material conditions.

Objection 2: “Research-track faculty will stop teaching altogether, and students will lose exposure to cutting-edge knowledge.”

Response: Research-track faculty can still teach—but at the postgraduate and doctoral levels, where their specialized knowledge is appropriate. Advanced students benefit from being taught by active researchers. The proposal is not to ban researchers from teaching; it is to stop forcing all faculty to do both. Selective, appropriate teaching loads for researchers (e.g., one advanced course per year) can be preserved.

Objection 3: “Smaller colleges cannot afford two separate tracks.”

Response: Smaller colleges may not need both tracks. Many undergraduate colleges are primarily teaching institutions. They could hire exclusively teaching-track faculty. For colleges that aspire to research, consortia or cluster arrangements can allow shared research-track positions across multiple institutions.

Objection 4: “Predatory journals will continue to exist.”

Response: Removing the demand for predatory publications—by not requiring teaching-track faculty to publish—will starve the industry. Research-track faculty, who are genuinely engaged in knowledge production, will still need to publish, but they can be evaluated by quality metrics (e.g., journal reputation, citation impact, peer review invitations) rather than mere counts.

Conclusion: Honesty at Last

Indian academia must become honest about what it wants from its teachers. If it wants research, it must create research positions with light teaching loads, long periods of uninterrupted time, and evaluation based on conceptual depth. If it wants teaching, it must create teaching positions with rigorous pedagogical training, no research requirement, and evaluation based on student outcomes and curriculum impact.

The foundational fiction—that every faculty member is both a brilliant researcher and an inspired teacher—must be abandoned. It is not merely false; it is actively destructive. It has given us predatory journals, ghost-written dissertations, demoralized teachers, frustrated researchers, and students who are poorly served by both.

The structural separation of teaching and research tracks is not a radical experiment. It is a practical necessity. Many countries have done it. India can too—if it has the honesty to admit that the current system is broken, and the courage to fix it.

5 Questions & Answers (Q&A) for Examinations and Debates

Q1. What is the “foundational fiction” of Indian academia according to Anmol Jain, and why is it harmful?

A1. The foundational fiction is the assumption that every university faculty member is simultaneously a brilliant researcher and an inspired teacher. This assumption is baked into hiring norms (requiring a PhD for all teaching positions), promotion criteria (requiring continuous publications even for those who are not research-oriented), and institutional rankings (which reward research output above all).

It is harmful for three reasons:

1. Forced research produces substandard output: Natural teachers without research aptitude are compelled to publish, leading to a flood of low-quality papers and a thriving predatory journal industry.

2. Forced teaching burdens researchers: Genuine researchers who need uninterrupted time for knowledge production are weighed down by heavy teaching loads, damaging both their research and their students’ learning.

3. Institutionalised dishonesty: The system creates demand for ghost-written dissertations, dubious collaborations, and unethical publication practices because it asks people to do what they are not built to do.

The solution is a structural separation between teaching and research tracks, with equal legitimacy and reward for both.

Q2. Explain the difference in temperament and skill sets between a researcher and a teacher. Why is it unrealistic to expect both in the same person?

A2.

These are different clusters of abilities. While some exceptional individuals possess both, it is rare—and the system should not be designed assuming that everyone can do both. Forcing a researcher to teach large undergraduate classes poorly serves both the researcher and the students. Forcing a teacher to publish substandard research pollutes the academic literature and demoralizes the teacher.

Q3. What is the predatory journal industry, and how has Indian academia’s incentive structure created demand for it?

A3. Predatory journals are publications that:

• Charge authors a fee (article processing charge).

• Publish with little or no meaningful peer review.

• Often claim false impact factors or fake editorial boards.

• Accept clearly substandard, plagiarized, or even nonsensical papers.

How Indian academia creates demand: Promotion and hiring criteria in Indian universities require faculty to publish a certain number of papers—often regardless of research aptitude. Genuine research takes years. Faculty who are natural teachers (or who work at under-resourced colleges) cannot produce genuine research quickly. The market responds: predatory journals offer fast, guaranteed publication for a fee. Faculty pay, journals profit, and academic integrity collapses.

Jain notes that predatory journals are not a fringe phenomenon in India. They are a structural response to a structural demand. The solution is not merely to crack down on predatory journals (though that helps) but to remove the demand by not requiring teaching-track faculty to publish at all.

Q4. What reforms does Anmol Jain propose for entry requirements into academia? Specifically, what is wrong with the UGC-NET, and what should replace it?

A4. Current problem: The UGC-NET is a multiple-choice exam testing factual recall. It tests neither research aptitude nor teaching ability. It is a relic that serves as an artificial filter.

Proposed reforms:

Why no PhD for teaching track: A PhD is a research degree. It does not train for teaching. Some of the best teachers have only a master’s degree but a gift for explanation and empathy. Requiring a PhD for teaching is like requiring a medical degree to drive a taxi—unrelated.

Why reform UGC-NET: As currently structured, the NET rewards memory and exam-taking skill, which are neither good predictors of teaching effectiveness nor genuine research capability. It must be either scrapped or fundamentally reimagined.

Q5. How do institutional rankings distort research behaviour in Indian universities, and what does Jain mean by “billionmetricoutput”?

A5. How rankings distort: University rankings (NIRF, QS, THE, Shanghai) heavily weight research output metrics: number of publications, citation counts, faculty with PhDs, research income. This pressures institutions to require all faculty to publish, regardless of their role or skill set. Institutions then adopt research strategies that prioritize quantity over quality—what Jain calls “billionmetricoutput” (a pun on “billion metrics” and “billionaire output”).

Specific distortions:

• Unwarranted self-citations: Institutions pressure authors to cite papers from the same institution to boost impact factors.

• Dubious collaborations: Adding eminent names to papers they did not contribute to.

• Salami slicing: Breaking one study into many “least publishable units.”

• Publication cartels: Groups agreeing to cite each other excessively.

Jain’s position: Many Indian institutions have begun boycotting certain rankings, recognizing the game is rigged. Rankings could be reformed—to include teaching quality metrics, learning outcomes, graduate employability—but that is a longer battle. In the interim, Indian universities should implement structural separation between teaching and research tracks, regardless of what rankings do. The goal should be conceptual depth, not publication counts.