India, Jan. 17 -- India today has more than 1.6 million faculty members teaching over 40 million students across higher education institutions. Yet a nationwide study conducted in 2025 revealed a striking gap at the heart of this system: Nearly one in three faculty members reported receiving no formal training on how to teach before entering the classroom, and among those who did, almost 70% found that training ineffective. The Jetri Faculty Worklife Report 2025, based on responses from 547 faculty members across public and private institutions, finds faculty being pulled between teaching, research, and administrative work, with nearly a quarter spending most of their time on tasks they believed mattered more to institutions than to students. Mentoring students consistently emerged as one of the most meaningful aspects of academic work, yet also the activity most likely to be crowded out. This misalignment has consequences. Faculty who spend more time on student-centred work tend to remain longer at their institutions, suggesting that meaningful teaching is also a retention strategy. When faculty feel unable to do the work they value most, disengagement follows. Inside classrooms, the effects are already visible. Lecture-based teaching remains the dominant mode, even as nearly two-thirds of faculty report persistent struggles with student engagement. Faculty describe feeling ill-equipped to address student mental-health issues, diverse learning needs, and the responsible use of AI. Anonymous end-of-course evaluations, widely used as proxies for teaching quality, are often experienced as biased, demoralising, and professionally risky, particularly for early-career and women faculty. What the data showed is the absence of a coherent system for professional growth. Faculty express a strong appetite for development in assessment design, inclusive pedagogy, student engagement, and managing workload and energy. What is missing is sustained, well-designed support. Globally, leading higher education systems have responded to these pressures by treating faculty development as core academic infrastructure - operating year-round centres for teaching and learning, offering evidence-based training in pedagogy, assessment, and instructional leadership. Early-career faculty are often required to complete structured teaching certifications. Peer observation and coaching are normalised. Student feedback is contextualised with trained review. In India, by contrast, faculty development programmes remain fragmented, compliance-driven, and episodic, often designed to meet regulatory requirements rather than build sustained capability. Degrees such as BEd and MEd are largely oriented towards school education, leaving higher education faculty without a coherent pathway for growth. Faculty are also often dismissive of the programmes on offer, because checklist interventions have done more harm than good to establish value and credibility. Three shifts are urgently needed. First, faculty development must be continuous. Teaching capability cannot be built through one-off workshops; it improves through longitudinal learning, practice, feedback, and reflection. Second, development must be grounded in evidence, not trend-chasing. Faculty with robust training are more likely to adopt proven student-centred practices rather than superficial innovation. Third, institutions must treat faculty well-being and professional agency as strategic assets. No higher education reform can succeed unless India first develops those who teach....