An art school is only as good as the people teaching in it. In India, too many art schools are held back by faculty who are out of touch, under-motivated, or protected by a system that rewards longevity over excellence.

The hiring process in many institutions is opaque. Positions often go to insiders or acquaintances of the administration. Once appointed, faculty rarely face meaningful evaluation. Some have not produced significant work in decades, yet continue to teach methods and ideas from the period when they graduated. The result is a closed loop — teachers who were shaped by outdated systems now passing the same limitations to their students.

Few faculty members have active connections to the professional art world. Many have never shown work outside academic circles. Without firsthand knowledge of how galleries, biennales, or residencies operate, they cannot prepare students for life beyond the campus. This gap leaves graduates technically trained but professionally lost.

Guest lectures and visiting faculty could fill these gaps, but they are often treated as token gestures. A one-off talk does little if the main teaching remains stagnant. What is needed is structural change — contracts that require ongoing professional practice, research, or exhibition activity as part of the job.

Internationally, it is common for art school faculty to balance teaching with active artistic careers. This keeps their teaching relevant and their students connected to the present. In India, the absence of such a model has turned many classrooms into echo chambers.

Reform here is politically messy but unavoidable. Faculty hiring should be transparent, open to national and international applicants, and tied to a clear set of professional benchmarks. Tenure should come with responsibility, not immunity. An art school that cannot attract and retain practising, engaged faculty is not a school — it is a holding pattern for the past.