Indian society considers a few professions as being prestigious: doctor, government official and engineer being on that exotic list.
Till today, we have our parents urging us to join either the medical or the engineering field since they have a higher probability of providing a well-paying and secure job.
IIT or the Indian Institutes of Technology are one of the most reputed universities in the entire country with 1,043,739 students sitting for its entrance exam called IIT-JEE in 2018 while there are only around 11,279 seats for the undergradudate programs in all of the 23 IITs.
In fact, Vinod Khosla, who co-founded the Sun Microsystems and is a successful venture capitalist in the US said in a documentary by CBS that, “The IITs probably are the hardest school in the world to get into, to the best of my knowledge”.
But as esteemed as this institute might seem, the grass is not exactly all that green on the other side.
Recent reports have revealed that around 4 IIT students drop out of the college every single day.
How Many IIT Students Are Dropping Out?
The Ministry of Human Resource Development revealed on 9th December 2019 in the Lok Sabha that as many as 7,428 students had dropped out of IIT in the last five years.
This was done to get approval from authorities for these top engineering institutions including IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology) for an ‘exit’ option. This option would allow students to switch their course to BSc from BTech after their second semester.
The ‘exit’ option was brought up after noticing many students crumbling under the pressures of their courses and fully dropping out from the institute itself.
It was also revealed that in the last two years around 1,400 students had left their courses mid-way especially from IIT’s Delhi and Kharagpur campuses.
There are a number of reasons as to why this could be happening:
#1. Lucrative Job Offers
It was reported during the session by the MHRD about how one of the big reasons for students, especially the postgraduate level, dropping out was due to lucrative job offers.
During the course many students would take up side-jobs which would ultimately make it difficult to juggle both a full time course and job.
Many would also want to take up a job and climb the ranks there instead of ‘wasting’ a few years studying and entering the job market later.
#2. Forced By Parents
Many students have also seemed to dropout after seeing how difficult the course can be. The biggest reason why they even took admission into IIT was due to parental pressure.
But that cannot always hold their interest in the subject matter and can lead to them dropping out mid-way into their course.
In 2015 TOI reported that around 73 students had to leave IIT, Roorkee because of low grades as they were unable to cope with the stressful curriculum.
Read More: OpED: The Job Situation In Kerala Is So Bad That After Clearing The PSC Exams, Young Men Are Employed As Watchmen By The Govt.
#3. Depression
Another thing that students are not able to cope with is the excessive amount of competition that can lead to many students ending up depressed.
Sometimes family issues like medical emergencies, financial situation and more can also be few reasons for the student dropping out.
#4. Language Problem
The language problem has been there for quite some time at the IITs. Students coming from economically-weaker families or those who have majorly studied in Hindi medium schools find it difficult to adapt to the English language in which most of the courses are taught.
Frankly, I believe this is a sign that some push or incentive needs to be given to more creative areas. For ages now authorities and the government have only laid focus on promoting engineering and medical fields but not areas that might require more innovation and creativity.
It is high time that those sectors too be promoted if we are to ever be at the same playing field as the other developed nations.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Hindu, The Economic Times, Business Insider
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