Around 8,000 students belonging to SC/ST community dropped out from IITs, IIMs and NIITs in 5 years

Over 8,000 students from the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, OBC and minority communities have dropped from technical institutes including IITs, IIMs, IIITs, NITs, IISERs in the last five years, the education ministry informed Parliament on Wednesday. In the same time period, over 33 students from these communities died by suicide across these institutions. In addition to that, 7 students died by suicide in AIIMS campuses across the country.

In a written reply to a question posed by BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi, minister of state for education Subhash Sarkar said that postgraduate and PhD programmes accounted for the maximum number of dropouts.

Across the IITs, over 186 SC students dropped out of their studies in 2019, 287 in 2020, 318 in 2021, 229 in 2022, and 48 in the first six months of 2023, the ministry said. Amongst students, the dropout rates stood at 85 (2019), 104 (2020), 106 (2021), 98 (2022), and 15 (2023).

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The highest number of dropouts was of OBC students, with 391 leaving studies in 2019, 527 in 2020, 640 in 2021, 428 in 2022, and 80 in 2023. In all, there were 1510 dropouts in 2019, 2152 in 2020, 2411 in 2021, 1746 in 2022, and 320 in 2023.

After the IITs, NIITs recorded the highest number of dropouts, with 1292 in 2019, 1467 in 2020, 1467 in 2021, 1270 in 2022, and 127 in 2023. The dropouts in NIITs was the highest among OBCs, with 324 recorded in 2019, 335 in 2020, 321 in 2021, 309 in 2022, and 40 in 2023. The dropout rates in IIMs stood at 107 in 2019, 225 in 2020, 224 in 2021, 203 in 2022, and 99 in 2023. There have been over 4926 dropouts across all the Central Universities in 2019, 5410 in 2020, 4156 in 2021, and 2962 in 2022.

The ministry, in its reply, said that among the main reasons are offers for placement in public sector enterprises and personal preference for better opportunities elsewhere. “The dropout in undergraduate programmes is attributed to withdrawal due to wrong choices filled, poor performance and personal and medical reasons,” the ministry said in its reply.

The ministry added that as corrective measures, institutions appointed advisors to monitor the academic progress of students, have given the provision of additional classes for academically weaker students, peer-assisted learning, counselling to de-stress students, etc.