Over 13,600 SC, ST, OBC students dropped out of IITs, IIMs, central universities in 5 years

NEW DELHI: A total of 13,626 students from the historically-marginalised Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (SC, ST, OBC) have dropped out of central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) in the last five years.

The vast majority of them dropped out of central universities, followed by the IITs, shows data shared by union minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar with parliament on Monday.

In total, 3,542 students belonging to OBC, Dalit and Adivasi communities studying in IITs dropped out of their respective institutions in the last five years. Similarly, 9,642 dropped out of central universities. Sarkar was replying to a question raised by Ritesh Pandey, member of parliament from Bahujan Samaj Party.

IIT, IIM, Central University: Dropouts distribution

The IIT Council had discussed the problem of dropouts at its June meeting. As a solution, IIT Madras had proposed a sports quota for students; the IITs are already running programmes that allow exits with lower qualifications along the way. Central universities have far more students at the undergraduate level than the IITs. Delhi University alone has more undergraduate seats than all IITs put together.

The minister 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 seats by the students in other departments/institutions of their choice or on any personal ground”.