13k SC/ST, OBC students dropped out of central universities, IITs, IIMs in the last 5 years, Lok Sabha told

Explaining the possible reason behind the drop-outs, minister said students have multiple options in the higher education sector and they choose to migrate across institutions and from one course/programme to another in the same institution

New Delhi: Around 13,626 reserved category students from the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) have dropped out of the central universities (CUs), the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) over the last five years, minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar informed the Lok Sabha on Monday.

The data was submitted in response to a question by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Ritesh Pandey in Lok Sabha. (ANI)

The data was submitted in response to a question by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Ritesh Pandey about the number of drop-outs from central universities, IITs, IIMs and National Law Universities (NLUs) over the last five years.

Responding to the question, Sarkar said, in the last five years, around 4,596 OBC, 2,424 SC, and 2,622 ST students have dropped out of central universities; 2,066 OBCs, 1,068 SCs, and 408 STs from IITs; and 163 OBCs, 188 SCs, and 91 STs from IIMs.

“NLUs have been established under the Acts enacted by the respective state legislatures and as such they are the state universities. No such data on dropout students from NLUs is maintained by the central government,” he added.

Explaining the possible reason behind the drop-outs, Sarkar said students have multiple options in the higher education sector 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,” he said.

Responding to a query on what the government was doing to address the issue, Sarkar said that 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,” he added.

He further said that 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,” he said.