The teaching profession has undergone a sea change from the Gurukul system to the present system of education. However, the perception of the society on Teachers has not changed. Teaching is now a profession rather than passion and thus there is a paradigm shift. The crux of the issue is: to meet the demand with necessary quality and commitment towards the profession.

The fundamental requirement for global standards of education is the trained graduates by professionally competent teachers. As it looks today, in the Indian context, where there is an explosion of education enterprise, there is a great demand for good committed teachers. This situation is common to all the developing countries. The recent times, to keep the balance between the demand and supply, have seen a spurt of growth in the educational institutes mainly catering to  Professional courses (The cry is louder now for the basic sciences which do not attract students). Education, as a responsibility of the State became an enterprise. The private partnership has increased enormously. Still, there seems to be a need for more Institutes.
This growth has given urgency in the educational reforms which are being addressed at the Ministerial level by a number of excellent and eminent academicians. This growth, whether planned or unplanned, has given its tremendous pressure on the numbers in the teaching community. Also, the globalisation has given its due challenges and opportunities in the education sector / enterprise. The accreditation of Indian Engineers into the Washington accord makes the India trained Engineering graduates on global bench mark adds additional responsibility on the Teachers in the Engineering colleges (20 national Institutes of Technologies and 1,520 other Engineering Institutions). Over all there is a paradigm shift in the thinking, concepts, socioeconomic outlook in the teaching profession.
Whatever be the advancement in technology, till now, the teacher is not replaceable. From ages, teachers command good respect from the society. They are expected to be ideal role models and their main responsibility is to train the young minds / shape the society. The teacher is the one who not only imparts knowledge but also shapes the character of the students which makes a society. We think twice (or a million times) before we entrust our living assets: children, to schools. The teachers are always under paid. The teacher used to exercise (till mid 70’s) full authority and autonomy on teaching methods. However, there is considerable change in recent times. There is erosion in values,  responsibilities, commitments of the teaching profession. This erosion is a result of complex structure of the society, socio-economic growth, the enterprising nature of education (we can buy seats now) and the pressure of work (in the Institutes of higher learning, the teacher is to show his visible research outputs) and the quantification of deliverables by the teacher and many more factors (direct or indirect). Nowadays, the teacher is as busy and as pressurised by software professional. To d a y, teaching h a s transformed f r o m passion t o profession. T h e consumerism h a s pervaded i n t o  e v e r y walk of life and m o n e y seems to rule the “comforts”.  The salaries of teachers, though given a priority in the Government thinking, still the emoluments lack the  societal demands, thus the profession does not seem to attract the right talent. Further to these points, the selection mechanism of the teachers (for higher positions) seems to depend, in higher educational institutions, mainly on the research credentials rather than on the teaching skills.
The teacher – student ratio becoming high (approximately stands at 1:9 and is anticipated to reach 1:14 in higher educational Institutes). There is a need to rethink the teaching methodology (adopting modern tools) and evaluation mechanism. As is pointed out, our examination system is based mainly on the memory rather than on application and our admission process is elimination rather than selection. Though we desire creativity and innovation need to b e inculcated th ro ug h younger minds at the high s c h o o l level, the infrastructure (including t h e professional teachers) i s absolutely inadequate. Recently, it has b e e n reported in the media that higher salaries for a specified sector is  because they take more risks and the teaching profession is one in which risk factors are absolutely minimal. But, let us all remember that the risk of teachers is not felt today but certainly when it is felt, it is rather irreparable and the society has to pay very heavily at a later time. There are enough indicators, as may be seen by the selection committee members, that the candidates appearing for teaching jobs lack the required fundamental knowledge and the desired motivational levels for teaching. The selection methods in almost all the Universities and some Institutes of higher learning need to be redesigned to discover the teaching skills and the commitment along with research capabilities. Also, the society should recognise that teaching is a serious profession and it demands considerable time and effort.
The teaching talent is to be identified as early as possible and is to be fostered. A special recognition needs to be given to the teachers for which evaluation yardsticks have to be evolved. It is to be realised that anybody and everybody cannot be a teacher. Also, it is to be noted that there are no set procedures and bench marks to evaluate the teaching methods. As it appears that now since the demand cannot meet the supply, any teacher is welcome. This demand is there almost in every developing country and it continues to grow. The onus is on the developing countries. If this demand is not met in the right direction, an overall progress towards a global society and the vision of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005 -2014) may not be fulfilled. The question is how to meet the demand without compromising on the standards and values? One possible solution is to redefine the responsibilities of the teacher.
For example, in the earlier times (may be a decade ago), the teacher was responsible for collating information and imparting knowledge~ he/she also is responsible for evoking interest of the pupil in the subject. Today, the information is freely available in abundance~ thus the responsibility of the teacher has shifted to evoke innovative and adoptive thinking and analyses. The theme of teaching is towards global thinking with local applications. Today, the student is clearer in his career paths and is also clearer of his challenges in the global markets.
Thus the onus on the teachers is to impart conceptual understanding, evoke analytical and unconventional thinking and facilitate problem solving skills. Since the individual attention in the class rooms is becoming almost impossible, the teaching skills should have a broader base. The present day teacher is facing altogether new challenges. Under these transformed conditions, the commitment, dedication, teaching methodology and professional standards need to be redefined.
The other possible attempt is to identify the teaching talent quite early and to foster this young talent to become a workforce in short time. Educational Technology: the methodology to impart knowledge and analytical skills may be identified as Thrust area and developed methodically in all the institutes to invent new and novel methods in imparting knowledge to a larger student – teacher ratio without sacrificing the creativity, innovation and analyticity in the young minds (this is not an easy task). Probably, the Educational Technology is the area where we should pioneer to lead all the developing nations in the endeavor of the program “Sustainable Development” as launched by the United Nations.