Over 13,000 SC, ST, OBC students dropped out of central varsities, IITs, IIMs in 5 years: Minister

The government has taken various steps like fee reduction, establishment of more institutes, scholarship, priority access to national level scholarships to aid the students with poor financial backgrounds to pursue their education.

Over 13,000 students have dropped out of IITs, IIMs and central universities in the past five years

IIT, IIM Dropouts: To proactively address any issues of SC/ST students, institutes have set up mechanisms such as sc/st students’ cells, equal opportunity cell, student grievance cell, student grievance committee, students social club, liaison officers, liaison committee etc. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran/ representative)

As many as 13,626 Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Class (OBC) students have dropped out of central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the last five years, informed the Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar in a written reply to Lok Sabha today.

Answering a question in the Lok Sabha, on whether the government has conducted any study to understand the causes behind high dropout rates amongst OBC, SC, and ST students in these Higher Education Institutions, Sarkar said: “In the Higher Education sector, students have multiple options and they choose to migrate across institutions and from one course/programme to another in the same institution. The migration/withdrawal if any, is mainly on account of securing seat by the students in other departments or institutions of their choice or on any personal ground.”

Sharing data, Sarkar also said that 4,596 OBC candidates, 2,424 SC and 2,622 ST students have dropped out of the Central Universities in the past five years. As many as 2,066 OBC candidates, 1,068 SC and 408 ST students dropped out of IITs and 163 OBC, 188 SC and 91 ST candidates have dropped out of IIMs in the same period.

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These are the students who have dropped out in the last five years

These are the students from IITs, IIMs and central universities who have dropped out in the last five years (Graphics by Dinkar Sasi)

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The government, Sarkar added, has taken various steps like fee reduction, establishment of more institutes, scholarship, priority access to national level scholarships to aid the students with poor financial backgrounds to pursue their education. For the welfare of SC/ST students, the schemes like ‘waiver of tuition fees in IITs’, grant of national scholarships under Central Sector Scheme, scholarships in institutes etc are also there, he added.

“In order to proactively address any issues of SC/ST students, institutes have set up mechanisms such as SC/ST students’ cells, Equal Opportunity Cell, Student Grievance Cell, Student Grievance Committee, Students Social Club, Liaison officers, Liaison Committee etc. Further, University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued instructions from time to time for promoting equity and fraternity amongst students,” the minister said.

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