High societal expectations, academic performance, peer pressure, language barriers, increasing class sizes and no or little personal connect with faculty, higher caste-based reservations, lack of outreach by on-campus counsellors, coping up with rigorous schedules to adjusting to a completely new ecosystem — students do crack the entrance exam to the country’s premier tech institutes but find it tough to survive through the course, with some falling off the grid.
The recent student suicides at IIT-Bombay and IIT-Madras have once again renewed the discussion around vulnerabilities of young people who crack the engineering entry-level exam to fulfill their dream of studying at an IIT but once in, some cut it short too soon. The issue is much larger and requires equally big interventions, said faculty members and experts on these campuses.
The cases, facts and figures
On February 12, Darshan Solanki, an 18-year-old chemical engineering student, jumped off the seventh floor of his hostel building on Powai campus at IIT-Bombay, one of the top-ranking institutions in the country.
The family of Solanki, a Dalit student from Ahmedabad, has alleged caste-based discrimination behind him taking the extreme step. However, the institute on Wednesday issued a statement refuting the claims as police investigation in the case is still on. It termed any caste-based discrimination by students as an “exception”.
A day later, on February 13, a student’s suicide was reported from IIT-Madras campus, yet another top-ranking IIT. Stephen Sunny, 27, was a second-year MS research scholar in Electrical Engineering who ended his life in his hostel room. Another 22-year-old first-year BTech student had attempted suicide on the same day on the Madras campus by swallowing pills but was rescued in time.
These incidents are not very far off from the recent spate of suicides seen by engineering and medical aspirants at the coaching hub of Kota, Rajasthan. Four aspirants died by suicides in their rented accommodation within a span of 12 days. While three of these suicides (in separate incidents) took place on the same day (December 11, 2022), another student took his life on December 23, 2022. Last year, a total of 15 aspirants, all in the 16-18 age-group, died by suicide at the coaching hub.
According to government data, a total of 122 students from centrally funded higher education institutions — IITs, NITs, central universities, IIMs and others — died by suicide during 2014-21. Of these, 58 per cent students were from reserved categories (SC/ST/OBC) as well as minority communities, the information shared in Parliament by Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan in 2021 revealed.
Why higher suicides in reserved categories?
Citing the recent case of the Dalit boy from IIT-Bombay, faculty members said over 70 per cent seats across IITs are for the reserved categories, which also includes quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) and minority communities.
“Students from these categories struggle the most. When they enter IITs, their cut-offs are relatively lower than those for other students but once they are on campus, it’s a level playing field for each one and of course there is pressure for academics. They cannot be graded separately. This is when they start falling behind other students who might be scoring better and get depressed. Now, the class sizes have grown too big for even teachers to gauge if the student is seemingly withdrawn,” said a senior professor teaching at one of the top IITs, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
More than academics, the professor said, it is the high societal pressure and family expectations of getting into an IIT, which is considered to be life’s biggest achievement even when students are not mentally equipped to handle such pressure. “Every student who lands at IITs is good, but some are relatively behind in terms of grasping tough concepts or adjusting to a new life, which is where the complexes start building and go unnoticed most of the time,” he added.
What are the gaps?
Another senior faculty member said while guidance and counselling cells are active at all IITs, they are too full and require more staff and specific modules to assess those in need of help, especially in the case of first-year undergraduate students who are young and vulnerable.
“The number of cases counselling cells receive are far more than the limited staff can deal with. Also, not every student can identify that he needs help or is willing to reach out for it. Most students suffering depression become too remote even from their closest friends or roommates. In such cases, it is difficult to offer help, but specific outreach programmes and constant monitoring of mental health can help fill these gaps to an extent,” said a faculty member working closely with the counselling cell, who didn’t wish to be named.
Some faculty members also attributed the recent suicides to the post-pandemic transition where undergraduate students, who were so far just limited to small coaching centres, are getting back to campus after a long haul.
“At IITs, students come from every corner of the country. So far during the pandemic, first-year B Tech students were studying online or preparing at coaching institutes after completing school and suddenly they have got exposed to a much larger ecosystem where they often feel vulnerable and need a support system to carry through their course,” said another faculty member working closely for students’ mental health.
He added that new entrants require longer induction programmes where they are oriented with campus life to allow them to settle in.
When News18 dialled counselling services at most IIT campuses, they were active, but only a few had instant support mechanisms such as ‘Your Dost’ being offered by IIT-Mandi. This portal helps students chat anonymously with a psychologist/counsellor on board and even provides a variety of mental health services such as quick self-tests on anxiety, emotional intelligence etc to help relieve stress.
Many students from different IITs across the country said extremely high requirement of attendance (85 per cent at some campuses) and long assignments don’t allow their minds to freshen up and those who lag behind often get depressed.
Many also said counselling services are too lax and lack initiative. “There is extremely high requirement for full attendance where even if you miss one class for a genuine reason, you’ll have to repeat the entire course. There are teachers who give intensely long assignments, which they don’t even care to explain, but expect students to complete within a day. All students have a different pace of learning and coping skills. Those left behind often go through a lean phase and at times take the extreme step,” said a research scholar at IIT-Madras, not wishing to be named.
Growing class size, lack of infra, vacant faculty positions
Over the past decade, the number of seats at IITs have gone up while the infrastructure has remained the same. “The class sizes for first-year B Tech students at most campuses have gone up to 300, which leaves little or no scope for students to have any personal connect with faculty or for teachers to notice if a student seems inattentive and if they are able to follow what is being taught. For instance, a computer science class is so huge that it has a student with rank 22 and rank 2200 together. Those in the lower ranks often get depressed.
“Even if the teachers want to separate the class in small groups, there is no infrastructure available for the same. So the class strength needs to be reduced in a major way by improving infrastructure. The government needs to allocate more funds for revamp of campuses, in particular, the old IITs,” said a former IIT-Delhi professor.
The professor also highlighted that good quality and trained faculty is hard to find, which is also why institutions are not able to fill up vacancies. “Only 5 per cent of graduating students go in for PhDs or higher studies. Most get into jobs right away. This is the reason why we don’t have enough suitable candidates for filling up faculty positions, which also affects the quality of teaching in a big way,” he added.
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