CHENNAI/NEW DELHI: More than 4,400 students dropped out of IITs and NITs in the last three years due to various reasons including “academic stress”, the government said on Wednesday and assured that corrective actions have been initiated.
Once an IIT student drops out of his/her course at any point, the seat remains vacant till the end of the programme and no induction can happen since it is almost impossible to provide proper education considering the way the course is structured.
In some IITs, students who have more than three to four backlogs during the first two semesters, find it difficult to pursue the remaining course and this might lead to dropouts, said S Sundar, chairman of IIT-JEE.
Assuring that corrective measures have been initiated, Irani said through guidance and counselling, students facing emotional difficulties are identified and guided to professional counsellors for help.
Though the number of IIT dropouts is growing every year, the IITs had preferred to opt for an ‘exit policy’ aimed at plugging seat vacancies that occur when students quietly drop out, instead of taking concrete steps to stop the dropouts.
The Ananda Krishnan committee report on suicides in IITs also mentioned stress and inability to cope up with the system. The findings of the committee ranged from personal problems, mental stress, family problems, factors such as poor results and inability to cope with teaching methods.
“If the recommendations of the Ananda Krishnan Committee report on suicides in IITs had been strictly implemented, there would have been no dropouts in IITs. Unable to cope with the system and stress could be the main reasons for the dropouts,” said an IIT Delhi professor.
“As far as Thambidurai’s question with regard to IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Roorkee on why there is a large surge of dropouts from these three institutions is concerned, I would like to assure him that, the Department has communicated with these institutions asking for the reasons as to why they feel there is such a large number of dropouts. I am sure that they will respond to the government of India soon,” Irani said in the Lok Sabha. She added, “Let me reiterate here the commitment of the government to ensure that within these IITs, we will ensure that the mechanism to deal with academic stress and the mechanism to help weaker students to strengthen themselves.”