IITs take preventive measures to curb campus suicides

The premier engineering institutes are taking measures such as counselling and mentorship for students with low grades and backlogs, reducing the curriculum load and setting up of mental wellness centres. 

After facing the heat from student groups across India, several Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are taking preventive measures to prevent campus suicides like the two reported at IIT Bombay and IIT Madras recently. after the suicide of an IIT Bombay student.  

The two latest incidents - the suicide of an IIT Bombay student Darshan R Solanki on February 12, and the suicide of an IIT Madras student Stephen S Alappat on February 14 have pointed at the alleged caste bias and harassment the two students faced, causing them immense mental agony, leading them to take the extreme step.  

The premier engineering institutes are taking measures such as counselling and mentorship for students with low grades and backlogs, reducing the curriculum load and setting up of mental wellness centres, The Indian Express reported.

IIT Bombay Director Subhasis Chaudhuri recently announced that the institute was planning to bring changes in undergraduate curriculum. He said, “We are also working towards changes in our UG curriculum, starting with the batch of 2022, to make it more relevant and motivating to students, and to reduce some of the stress.” 

He also talked about the steps the institute has been taking years to support and protect the mental health of students. He mentioned about active student mentor programme, which reaches out to all new students, and Student Wellness Centre. 

At IIT Guwahati, over the years several steps have been taken by the Center for Holistic Wellbeing to promote the overall wellbeing of the students on campus and help mitigate the gap between the stigma attached to counselling and accessing mental health care. 

“The details of students with low CPIs (Cumulative Performance Index) and backloggers are shared by academic section with the Deans and the Chairperson of Welfare Board. The faculty advisors and counsellors are accordingly asked to get in touch with each student to understand their mental state and the reason for low performance.  

“Accordingly, steps are taken up to support and mentor them either by the counsellors or faculty advisors depending upon the reason of low performance,” said Bithiah Grace Jaganathan, Associate Dean, Students’ Affairs, IIT Guwahati. According to the Ministry of Education data, the IITs recorded 34 suicides between 2014-2021 — 18 of the students were from SC and OBC communities. 

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