Prompted by concerns of students’ mental health, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi recently added ‘caste-based trauma and discrimination’ as one of the sub-categories under the list of problems that students may experience and seek help for on its online counselling services portal — an outsourced service being used by several IITs for 24X7 assistance to students, News18 has learnt.
According to faculty members, steps to address students’ mental health have been strengthened even more post-pandemic since it created a gap in students’ interaction with both peers and faculty to be filled up.
“In view of concerns raised by a student over caste-related trauma and discrimination not being a part of the categories under ‘areas of concern’ on the portal, we took note of it and wrote to the service provider to get it added as one of the sub-categories under the broader category of abuse,” said a senior official, who did not wish to be named.
The online counselling platform has various broad categories of concerns that students may go through, including abuse, career, academics, self-improvement, sexual wellness, family and relationships and LGBTQ, among others. The services at the institute are besides the in-house students’ wellness centre that have psychologists/counsellors available on campus round the clock.
The online services are available 24X7 and offer support to students in various modes, including chat, tele-counselling or face-to-face sessions, depending on what they are most comfortable with. “This is just one of the many others measures that we are taking to minimise incidents of students taking the extreme step. We have also strengthened our in-house counselling cell, allowing them more powers to directly summon campus security in case they feel a student needs urgent help without having to go through other channels,” the official said.
Last month, IIT-Bombay — besides strengthening its counselling mechanisms on campus — issued a notification asking students to not ask fellow students about their JEE Advanced rank or GATE scores or any such information that may reveal caste or any related aspects. The notification pasted on hostel rooms and other areas where students gather stated that it was “inappropriate” to ask fellow students any such question that may come out as an attempt to reveal their caste. The institute came out with a new set of guidelines for students following the recent death of first-year Dalit student Darshan Solanki by suicide allegedly due to caste discrimination.
Faculty members associated with wellness centres across several IITs said that counselling services on campuses are almost packed on any day with a lot of students coming in to seek help.
“Most of the time it has been seen that the problems being faced by students are personal, which then get intertwined with academics as well and thus start affect their mental well-being. A lot of it is about family and ‘fitting-in’. There are times when family expectations are too high or the emotional connect is disrupted. We make an effort to make students be in regular touch with their families and bridge the gaps wherever found necessary,” said another official.
This year, by July itself, 20 student suicides have been reported from across top-ranking higher education institutions, of which seven are from different IITs. Of these, five such incidents took place at IIT-Madras while one each has been reported from IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi.
The IIT campuses have since been taking steps to strengthen mechanisms to prevent such incidents and help students from early on. Besides the above mentioned measures, IIT-Delhi has also increased frequency of its ‘open house’ interactions with students and approved a new evaluation system from this academic session.
