New Delhi (PTI): Amid a severe shortage of quality staff in varsities, an average of 25 per cent of the teaching professionals in the country are quitting jobs annually, more so in engineering and management schools, according to a recent report.

"The average attrition rate in academic institutes is about 25 per cent per annum," according to a survey by Emerging Directions in Global Education (EDGE) and research and consulting firm MARCH.

Lack of better compensation and other employee benefits were cited as two main reasons for people leaving jobs in academic institutions.

"India has high quality educational institutions but there is severe shortage of quality teaching staff. Recruiting and retaining talent is a major challenge for every institution at present. At the time of globalisation, specific recruitment and retention for faculties is the urgent need of the hour," the survey said.

The survey noted that attrition rate in engineering and management institutes is higher as compared to medical colleges.

EDGE founder K Kasturirangam said in a statement that in order to survive in the knowledge economy, it is a must to appoint best faculties to teach students.

"It is high time for us to identify the issues associated with faculty recruitment and retention and find out proper solutions for the same," he said.

The survey, which threw light on various issues on faculty recruitment and retention strategy for quality education in the country, as per students' view, 60 per cent of faculty exit during the academic year, which badly affects their studies. This trend is much higher in case of private institutes as compared to their government counterparts, it said.

To retain staff, the survey suggested that an institution should adopt retention strategy based on personal factors like family living locally. Also, academic institutes should have strong regulations to curb teachers from leaving jobs during an academic year.

The study also revealed that maximum number of professionals preferred working for private institutes, which had reputation and better career growth.