- By Sakshi Gupta
- Tue, 05 Dec 2023 04:47 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
JE Education Desk: The Lok Sabha was informed on Monday that throughout the last five years, more than 13,600 students belonging to the reserved category have left central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). In response to a written question from BSP member of the Lok Sabha Ritesh Pandey, Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar provided the figures.
Sarkar stated that in the recent five years, 4596 OBC, 2424 SC, and 2622 ST students had left Central Universities (CUs).
1068 SC, 408 ST, and 2066 OBC students dropped out of IITs. Whereas, for OBC, SC, and ST students at IIMs, the numbers stayed at 163, 188, and 91, respectively.
"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 or institutions of their choice or on any personal ground," he said.
According to the minister, National Law Universities (NLUs) are state universities because they were created by legislation passed by the state legislatures in question.
"No such data on dropout students of NLUs is maintained by the central government," he added.
In response to a follow-up question about what the government is doing to address the problem, Sarkar stated that to help students from low-income backgrounds continue their education, the government has implemented several measures, including fee reduction, the creation of new institutes, scholarships, and priority access to national-level scholarships.
"For the welfare of SC and ST students, schemes like 'waiver of tuition fees in IITs', grant of national scholarships under Central Sector Scheme, scholarships in Institutes etc. are also there," he further stated.
