India, Jan. 24 -- The city's 50-year-old Art and Music Academy run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is grappling with an acute shortage of teachers, disrupting art and music education for thousands of students in municipal schools across the city. Once a key platform for nurturing young creative talent, the academy is now operating with a fraction of its sanctioned staff strength, raising concerns about the future of structured arts education in BMC classrooms.

Official records show that the academy has a sanctioned strength of around 460 posts for art and music teachers. However, only a small number of these positions are currently filled. Senior officials in the BMC education department said the shortage has steadily wor...