In response to a written question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Education, Subhas Sarkar, informed that between 2018-2023 more than 19,000 students from OBC, SC and ST categories dropped out from Central universities, IITs and IIMs
“In the higher education sector, students have multiple options and they choose to migrate across institutions and from one course or programme to another in the same institution. The migration or withdrawal, if any, is mainly on account of securing seats by the students in other departments or institutions of their choice or on any personal ground,” Sarkar said, slighting Opposition queries to bias against students from the SC/ST categories.
“No case of caste discrimination and alienation of SC and ST students have been reported from Indian Institutes of Technology in the past five years,” added the minister.
He, however, acknowledged that seven cases of suicides by SC and ST students have been reported in IITs while the same number of students from the two categories in Central Universities in the mentioned time period.
“In cases of suicides, besides an internal inquiry by the institute, the district and police administration also enquire into the incident. The reasons behind such suicides were found to be academic stress, family reasons, personal reasons, mental health issues, etc,” Sarkar briefed.
The minister also informed the House that the government has taken various steps like fee reduction, establishment of more institutes, scholarship, priority access to national level scholarships to aid the financially challenged students.
According to available records, the number of drop out students from 2018 to 2023 in central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management in various courses is 19,256.
While 14,446 students from the three categories dropped out from Central universities during the period, 4,444 students dropped out from IITs, and 366 from IIMs, he shared.
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