Courtesy of Delhi Public School, Bangalore South

BANGALORE—When a Bangalore school, part of India’s largest school chain called Delhi Public School, or D.P.S., recently surveyed 300 teenage students in an anonymous review called “Loving Your Teacher,” the authorities were staggered by the barrage of criticism about teachers’ appearances.

“She is a fashion disaster, she wears a denim jacket over every single outfit – sari, salwar kameez, everything,” a nameless student noted of one teacher.

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Another wrote referring to the help at school, “My teacher looks like an ayah.”

One asked, “Her nail polish is always chipped, why wear nail polish at all?”

Students were forbidden from naming names but in some cases managers at D.P.S. South could guess which teacher was being described.

One student noted, “My teacher always smells of food.”

“She wore the same dress two days in a row. Did she sleep over at school?” another asked.

“Why does she wear heavy wedding jewelry with casual clothes?” posed another.

Such derision against teachers would have been inconceivable in an India of even a generation ago. India’s teachers may be poorly paid like many of their peers around the globe, but are treated with great deference in a country that places supreme emphasis on education.

In most Indian schools, students must stand up in class while addressing or being addressed by a teacher. They must append a “ma’am” or “sir” to the name while referring to a teacher or speaking to them. They must stand at a reverential distance while in conversation.

For ages not much has changed in the student-teacher equation outwardly. But clearly students were no longer impressed with subject expertise and teaching technique. “Students want teachers to impart knowledge, but to do so in style,” said Manju Sharma, the impeccably clad principal of D.P.S. South.

As is common in India, the school’s 5,000 students, boys and girls from upper middle-class families, are required to wear school uniforms. Its 270 teachers, all women, come dressed in Indian attire – sari or salwar kameez.

Instead of balking at the stinging criticism, the school began observing its teachers. Some were indeed showing up in uncoordinated clothing and flip-flops. “They looked like they had come to school in a tearing hurry,” Ms. Sharma said.

So much has changed in the classroom in the past few decades since she herself was at school, said Rajashree Ivaturi, a Bangalore-based management consultant and mother of a pre-teen girl who studies at another Bangalore school. When she was growing up, clothes were either “old” or “new,” Ms. Ivaturi said.

“Today, with television and other media influences, there is so much emphasis on what you are wearing, what you are carrying, where you are being seen. Naturally, children are swayed,” she said. Her daughter insists that Ms. Ivaturi look good, she said, whether dropping off her off to the school bus or going for a morning walk.

D.P.S. South took its survey findings seriously. It roped in a fashion designer, Michelle Salins, to conduct a daylong session for teachers on how to pick and coordinate clothes, accessorize, wear makeup and choose footwear.

“Some teachers may think, ‘we are here to teach, what we wear does not matter,’ but students notice,” said Kavita Ghosh, a ninth-grade teacher who coordinated the interactions between teachers, students and the fashion designer. It was time to rethink students’ expectations, she said. Students want teachers to be multidimensional, to care about outward appearances as much as inner substance, said Neeta Jain, a kindergarten teacher.

Ms. Salins assembled a teacher-student panel at “Fashion Talk,” where a 10th-grader named Angad Gummaraju minced no words. “If my teacher came in with chipped nail polish, she does not know how to present herself,” he said. “I would not respect her.”

Some teachers were clearly on the defensive. “A teacher could have a bad nail day, just like everybody has a bad hair day,” said Subhalakshmi Modak, an 11th-grade English teacher. “We cannot be fashion conscious all the time.”

The stylish Ms. Salins counseled that comfort dressing need not translate into sloppy attire. She laid out a series of “What not to Wear.” With Indian curves, tight leggings worn over a short tunic constituted a fashion faux pas, she said. Too much or gaudy makeup was out. The kameez (tunic) needed to go lengthier and the slit on the sides lower so that teachers looked decorous while bending or writing on the board. The makeup could be minimal – eyeliner, a subtle colored lipstick and perhaps some blush, she advised.

“You don’t have to be a fashion icon,” Ms. Salins said. “But if you want to be idolized by your students, looking presentable plays a part.” She underscored a surprisingly recurrent makeup hint by students: teachers must wear eye makeup, several students said, because “we have to look into the teacher’s eyes all the time.”

Some of the responses had clearly stunned the teachers. “I always thought D.P.S. South teachers were very well dressed,” one blurted out at the session.

The school would hold hair and makeup demos for its teachers at a later date, said Tasbia Khan, a member of the board that runs the three D.P.S. schools in Bangalore. “In a sense, every school is a finishing school these days and teachers have to lead the way,” Ms. Khan said.

Saritha Rai sometimes feels she is the only person living in Bangalore who was actually raised here. There’s never a dull moment in her mercurial metropolis. Reach her on Twitter @SarithaRai.