Nearly 20,000 students who belong to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) have terminated their studies in various courses offered by central universities, IITs, and IIMs between 2018 and 2023, according to the Ministry of Education.
This figure was shared by the Union Minister of State for Education, Subhas Sarkar, in response to a written question in Rajya Sabha last week.
Between 2018 and 2023, recent data reveals that 19,256 students have reportedly left Central Universities (CUs), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
In the past 5 years, 6901 OBC candidates, 3596 SC students, and 3949 ST students have dropped out of Central Universities, 2544 OBC candidates, 1362 SC students, and 538 ST candidates have dropped out of IITs, and 133 OBC, 143 SC, and 90 ST candidates have dropped out of IIMs.
Tiruchi Siva, an MP from Tamil Nadu, asked if: “The Government has conducted any study in regard to the reasons for the high dropout rate of OBCs, SCs, and STs students in these higher educational institutions”.
“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. 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,” the minister said.
These statistics are accompanied by distressing news about the suicide of a PhD student at IIT Madras, who took his own life in his off-campus residence in Chennai on Friday. This marks the third suspected case of suicide by a student at IIT-Madras in 2023.
Earlier this year, on 12 February, a Dalit student named Darshan Solanki died by suicide at IIT Bombay, allegedly due to the caste discrimination he faced. The police filed an FIR a month later for abetment to suicide against an unknown person and invoked relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
“These are institutional murders. There are no grievance redressal systems established, the mental health support is just for namesake, there is complete impunity for faculties and harassment is so rampant it is normalized,” responding to the latest data, Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle, IIT Bombay, said to Maktoob.
APPSC has been campaigning against institutional discrimination against students from marginalised groups at IIT Bombay.
“This is a concerning trend that have negative consequences on the education and future opportunities of marginalized communities,”Raniya Zulaikha, a student of Hyderabad Central University and Fraternity Movement leader said to Maktoob.
“But what is worse is that, death is not enough!! Even the dead bodies don’t trigger these spaces and still remain Agraharas. There need to be call for greater attention to be paid to the issue of discrimination of students from marginalized communities in India,” she said.
“Education shouldn’t be given at the cost of our lives.”
