Key areas of focus to reduce “pressure” and “fear of failure” to ensure mental health of students emerged during the Indian Institute of India meeting. technology (IIT) Council is the apex coordinating body of all the 23 premier engineering colleges across the country. This comes at a time when the suicides of students in these institutions over the past few months have sparked a national debate on the state of their mental health amid concerns about caste-based discrimination on campuses.
The Council, headed by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, looks after the administrative and other important matters of IITs across the country. Directors of all 23 IITs, members of the governing bodies, and officials from the Ministry of Education, among others, constitute the council which meets every two years in Bhubaneswar. The last meeting was held on February 22, 2021.
The underlying social, psychological and other health issues as possible causes of depression among students were discussed during the meeting, with the mental well-being of students being an important item on the agenda.
“The council discussed several steps required to ensure the mental health and well-being of students in IITs, including the need for a robust grievance redressal system, enhancing psychological counseling services, reducing pressure and fear of failure/rejection among students highlighting the importance of reducing said a senior ministry official.
It also called for a “pro-active” approach by the directors of the institute to provide all kinds of help to the students, including developing a strong mechanism of “zero tolerance” to discrimination on campuses. Reasons for drop out of students were also discussed.
Last month, the Lok Sabha was informed that 33 students committed suicide in IITs, the highest among other higher education institutions, in a five-year period. Nearly half of these students belonged to SC, ST and OBC communities.
This February, two students committed suicide one after the other (on February 12 and 13) at the IIT-Bombay and IIT-Madras campuses. The family of Darshan Solanki, a first-year Dalit student at IIT-Bombay, had cited caste discrimination against him as the reason behind his suicide. While the institute had denied the allegations, the police investigation into the matter is still on.
In March, another student ended his life at IIT-Madras.
Pradhan asked officials to ensure that students are allowed multiple choices as per the new national Education Policy (NEP) 2020, directing the higher education department for “further detailed report on the matter and scheduling discussions”.
The Council also agreed to extend the support to SC/ST students and decided to extend the period of support to women PhD students for an additional year.
Also, ways to overcome the language barrier, which is another major problem seen in IITs, ways to reach students from rural India and provide teaching-learning in regional languages with technical tools were discussed. This was the 55th meeting of the Council.
Another important point on the agenda was to expeditiously fill up the vacant faculty positions in these institutions. However, any decision on restructuring the tuition fees, which was last done in 2016, was not mentioned in the statement issued by the ministry despite being on the agenda.
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