Give equal education rights to Dalits: Sukhdeo Thorat

The chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, who was former chairman of the University Grants Commission, had been approached by five Dalit students, including Rohith Vemula, after their expulsion from the University of Hyderabad.

“Besides Rohith, there were two other cases of suicide by Dalit students at the same time. In 2013, during a spate of such suicides, a committee of academicians was formed to investigate the cases, which said that while discrimination was the main reason, fear of failure among students and administrative indifference were also responsible for the incident. In such situations, I feel remedial education centres in varsities need be to taken up seriously to ease psychological pressure on students,” said Thorat.

He added that while remedial education centres exist in varsities but there is no will to implement it fully . “Marginalised students from rural or Dalit backgrounds need more support in language improvement and core subjects. Most students drop out or face depression as they can’t cope with English or their core subject is not as strong as that of students from cities,” said Thorat.