Picture this: You are a teacher, standing by a blackboard, looking over 40 students in a typical Indian school classroom. You try your best, but did that boy in the corner, or that girl in the fourth row, understand what you said?
Enter Ms Curie: Your artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that immediately brings down the teacher-student ratio to 1:1.
Developed by the LEAD group, an edtech company that provides digital learning solutions to more than 8,500 schools across India, Ms Curie is one of many tools that the group is working on to help train teachers to be AI-forward—but more on that later.
An April report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Google.org, titled ‘AI for All: Building an AI-Ready Workforce in Asia-Pacific’, highlights a significant skill gap among Indian youth: Only one in five Indian youth (aged 15 to 29) has participated in AI upskilling programmes. The report warns that AI and automation could displace many Indian workers, especially those in low-skilled, repetitive jobs, unless urgent action to upgrade skills is taken.
India is on the precipice of a massive surge in demand for AI professionals, and will need an estimated 1 million skilled individuals as early as 2026, according to a government report titled ‘India’s AI Revolution: A Roadmap to Viksit Bharat’, released in June.
As the country aspires to become a $23-35 trillion economy by 2047, higher education, especially in engineering, will have to undergo a huge transformation, to meet evolving job market demands shaped by AI, automation and interdisciplinary innovation. A big part of that equation is to first upskill the faculty that teaches these graduates.
“India’s pupil-to-teacher ratio in higher education stands at roughly 30:1, with faculty vacancies ranging from 25 to 55 percent across institutions. This shortage has long been a concern, but in the age of AI, it has become far more urgent,” says Ashutosh Gupta, managing director, India and Asia-Pacific of Coursera, the edtech giant.
“As the shelf life of skills shortens dramatically, students are expected to learn faster than the system can adapt—yet many institutions still lack faculty equipped to teach these new-age skills,” he adds. “The challenge is twofold: There aren’t enough teachers, and many who exist aren’t trained in emerging domains like AI and data science.”
Coursera is mapping a clear shift in how universities are preparing their educators for the AI era: 96 percent of universities using Coursera for Campus extend licenses to their faculty, helping them learn the latest skills in AI, data and technology, while teaching the next generation of learners.
According to Coursera’s data, the top Indian institutions with the highest faculty enrollments on Coursera include Chandigarh University, KL University (Andhra Pradesh), Alliance University (Bengaluru) and Sister Nivedita University (Kolkata).
At Chandigarh University, faculty members are moving beyond foundational generative AI learning to focus on practical, application-based upskilling, taking courses such as Innovative Teaching with ChatGPT and generative AI for University Leaders.
“As India works toward building a million-strong AI-skilled workforce by 2026, the foundation must be laid by educators,” Gupta says. “By empowering teachers with cutting-edge skills and AI-powered tools, universities can ensure that both faculty and students remain future-ready in a world defined by rapid technological change.”
Also Read: Generative AI in the classroom: Next edtech evolution
The LEAD group, for instance, is working on a suite of tools that aim to take on this challenge.
“Historically, schools have struggled to personalise learning for every student. AI can break this constraint,” says Sumeet Mehta, CEO and co-founder, LEAD Group. “We are developing Ms Curie—a personalised AI teacher assistant—that can tutor each student 1:1. Once the human teacher has set the context of learning and created a pathway for students, Ms. Curie ensures that each student practises and progresses at their pace.”
The group is also building Socrates, a conversational AI school assistant that can help teachers prepare and improve their lessons, and school leaders intervene using real-time data and intelligence.
“We need to scrap our old computer science curriculum, predicated on teaching input-output devices and MS Office tools, to a new curriculum that helps students with algorithmic thinking, computational skills and the underpinnings of large language models,” Mehta adds.
Last year, the group launched Code.AI, for both teachers and students to familiarise themselves with the fundamentals of coding and AI. “This is critical to prevent our students to become slaves of AI and to enable them to master it,” Mehta says.
LEAD has conducted more than 100 trainings on Code.AI to help teachers understand how to teach these skills to their students. They have also trained more than 500 teachers in a tool called Techbook, an AI-powered solution for reading fluency and personalised practice.
SaathiGPT, developed by edtech startup TagHive, is an AI-powered platform built to support teachers and learners through intelligent tutoring, adaptive feedback and performance analytics. SaathiGPT powers the firm’s flagship product, Class Saathi, which is now deployed in over 15,000 classrooms globally, claiming to reach over 500,000 students.
The SaathiGPT teacher training modules aim to help teachers seamlessly integrate AI tools into everyday learning experiences—automated question generation, helping teachers interpret real-time analytics, and to design inclusive and personalised lessons plans.
“AI automation reduces teacher workload by handling tasks like grading, content creation and lesson planning recommendations. This allows teachers to focus more on pedagogy and student interaction, enhancing overall education quality,” says Pankaj Agarwal, founder and CEO of TagHive.
“In business schools, learning typically happens in two parts: Understanding concepts, theories and frameworks, and then applying them through case studies, role plays and discussions. At SP Jain Global, the first part is now handled by our AI-enabled Learning Tutor [AI-ELT], while the second takes place in the classroom,” says Nitish Jain, president, SP Jain School of Global Management.
The AI-ELT, originally created for students, has also become a learning partner for faculty. Professors use it to analyse classroom interactions, identify areas of confusion, and tailor sessions to meet each student’s unique learning curve.
“But the real breakthrough lies in how we measure and enhance teaching performance,” Jain says. “Instead of end-of-semester surveys or manual feedback forms that we all know to be slow, subjective and outdated, we replaced them with real-time AI analytics.”
The AI tools review each lecture, measure engagement levels, track participation, comprehension and map learning outcomes. They identify patterns and trends: At what point students lose interest, what concepts spark debate, and how effectively the faculty adapt in the moment.
It then compiles data-backed feedback for each professor, shared not at the end of a semester, but after every class. “Professors no longer wait for months to know what worked. They see it instantly. What clicked, what didn’t, and how to make it better the next time,” Jain says.
“In essence, AI has become a mirror for our faculty. It doesn’t just tell them how they taught; it shows them how students learnt. And that reflection is what drives meta learning at the highest level: Constant, evidence-based self-improvement,” he adds.
While tools and dashboards are one part of the equation, the institute’s professors are also put through AI literacy bootcamps and upskilling sessions.
“We’ve built an internal GenAI taskforce where faculty members share research, concept notes, collaborate on AI-integrated lesson design and discuss how to keep pace with fast-evolving student needs,” says Jain. “Faculty are sometimes challenged to teach outside their comfort zones using AI tools, forcing them to experience what our students experience: The constant need to adapt. Our goal isn’t training for the sake of compliance; it’s transformation through practice.”
At Anant National University in Ahmedabad, faculty and students co-learn the principles of AI together, given its dynamic nature. In essence, faculty guide and mentor, while students explore, experiment and create, using AI as a shared tool for co-discovery and enhanced impact.
“For instance, a communication design student with a product development idea recently used AI for technical assistance in refining and prototyping the concept. The core idea remained entirely their own,” says Sanjeev Vidyarthi, provost, Anant National University. “This approach has significantly expanded students’ creative bandwidth. By saving time on archaic paper research and mundane repetitive tasks, they have more space for deep ideation and innovation, while reducing turnaround time.”
Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), Gurugram, rolled out a course for all faculty on understanding generative AI and prompt engineering a few months ago to help them use it judiciously in their classroom preparation and delivery.
At Somaiya Vidyavihar University in Mumbai, in addition to upskilling workshops and seminars, faculty is encouraged to take on sponsored projects that use AI principles. A collaboration with Montclair State University, US, for instance, is providing advanced training to faculty members to utilise AI, especially in agricultural applications.
With faculty guidance, Somaiya’s students are using AI for real-world impact: Contributing to space satellite technology in collaboration with Isro, software to track the status of FIRs and charge sheets for the Mumbai police, geo-tagging farmland for more than 1,000 farmers in Sameerwadi, Karnataka, to name a few.
“Our students have also developed GProbot, an AI-powered robot, covering electronics, software, AI interface, language model and 3D-printed parts,” says Santosh Narayankhedkar, dean of academics, Somaiya Vidyavihar University. “It is being used in campus events to deliver awards and serve food and beverages to guests, with future applications in hotels and restaurants for room service and cleaning.”
Campuses expect a dip in demand for entry-level graduates, as AI takes on much of the clerical work. “But this is natural progression; three decades ago, simple graduates lost their value and they needed to upskill and aim for higher education,” says Poornima Gupta, professor, programme director-PGDM, GLIM.
First Published: Nov 07, 2025, 14:35
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