It is a shame that Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has decided to expel 38 students belonging mostly to Scheduled Caste (SC)/ Scheduled Tribe (ST) category. While the general thinking of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is in the direction of relaxing the examination system so that a more conducive learning atmosphere can be created for students, it appears that IIT Kanpur has yet to come out of the paradigm in which academic performance is used to penalize students. Suicides among students are not very uncommon in IIT Kanpur and presently an unusually high number of students are receiving psychological counselling. The failure is not that of students but that of IIT system.

IIT Kanpur must withdraw the expulsion order of students and revamp its system so that the academic programme motivates students to learn and engage in engineering-related socially-useful work rather than go after non-engineering consumerist oriented jobs which are totally non-productive.

Dr Sandeep Pandey
Former faculty member, IIT Kanpur and
former member, Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India