Academics as a Profession

By Dr. Samir Kagalkar

Updated: Saturday, July 11, 2026, 0:54 [IST]

Management educators' challenges and technological solutions:
The following news snippets give an insight into how critical the role of education sector and in turn, the role of faculty members is.

Knowledge commission Report: Stresses the need for excellent quality faculty as the key aspect of education delivery.
Yashpal committee report: Need to create 1500 universities immediately and over a period of time, a few more thousands of universities.
The higher education space is considered the next nation building activity: MHRD has granted generous funding to promote among faculty members at the older IIMs.

The common thread among all these is that the faculty member becomes the key link in the success of the education field in India. While this is true of any discipline, we focus in this article on the management education in India. This becomes all the more critical given the news report of a large number of B Schools shutting shop last year.

Why Academics as a profession?

Highly satisfying intellectually: You get paid to learn and know more, each day of your life, indeed a big perk?
Great work life balance: Less of administrative pin pricks (be it travel or logistics etc) means you have time to enjoy your family life, apart from contributing greatly to the future of the country.
Opportunity to contribute to thought leadership: You not only get to work on ideas, but also get to "infect" the next generation, thereby taking a thought leadership position.
Excellent contribution in nation building, by moulding the next generation of thought leaders and corporate managers.
Post VI pay commission implementation, higher and better compensation, catching up with the corporate compensation.
Always a scope for learning, through teaching smart young minds. (you actually get to learn more by teaching the smart minds of today's generation).