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College Instructors: Number of Students Taught
Key Takeaways
- Instructors in Kenyan universities teach at more than one university.
- Regent University had the highest "students to faculty ratio of 47 to 1" in the United States.
- Greece had the highest student-instructor ratio of 38.7 students per staff member in Europe.
Introduction
Evidence that proves/disproves that 7,573 is the most students taught by any instructor globally is not available in the public domain. An explanation providing supporting evidence that this can not be determined based on publicly available data has been provided in the research strategy section.
Helpful Findings
- According to data provided by Eurostat, Greece had the highest student-instructor ratios in Europe. It had 38.7 students per staff member.
- Data provided by Eurostat indicate that Belgium, Cyprus, Serbia, Turkey, and Italy have ratios of more than 20 students per instructor.
- According to an article by University World News, lecturers (instructors) in Kenyan universities teach at more than one university.
- According to the former chairman of the University Academic Staff Union, a welfare union for university staff, in 2015 the student-instructor ratio in Kenya was 1:500, and in some cases 1:900 students.
- In the United States, data from Univstats indicates that Regent University had the highest "students to faculty ratio of 47 to 1."
Research Strategy
To prove/disprove that 7,573 is the most students taught by any instructor globally, we began by searching through higher education statistics and surveys provided by credible sources. We searched through sources such as National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Ballot Pedia, Top Universities, Univstats, OECD, Education Data Initiative, Eurostat, and many others. Although these sources provided relevant data such as enrollment and student-instructor ratios, data regarding per-instructor enrollment numbers were not available. A search through other statistics databases such as Statista and Zippia was also not successful.
We then looked through education-specific articles and media reports from reputable global education news organizations such as Campus Explorer, Inside Higher Ed, University World News, New America, and other credible news sources such as The Guardian, Washington Post, US Today, CNBC, Forbes, and many others. Although these sources contained relevant information such as countries with high student-instructor ratios, they did not provide per-instructor enrollment numbers.
We then expanded our search to include older articles, press releases, and interviews with higher education stakeholders from around the world. We expected to find media coverage or press statements or interview appearance made by popular instructors, where they discuss enrollment numbers per instructor. Although we found an old article from The New York Times of an instructor with 1,600 students in a class, we were not able to find any recent article with relevant information.
We also looked into websites of universities with high student-instructor ratios such as Regent University. We expected that we will find per-instructor enrollment numbers or any data that can help us triangulate this information. However, we found limited information to help in the triangulation.