Many students are getting expelled from IITs, and under-performance is not the prime reason

Many students studying in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) who don’t come from English medium schools are facing a tough time coping up with understanding the instructions in English language.

Due to this, many students at different IITs such as Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati, Varanasi, Kharagpur, Roorkee, etc are getting expelled in their first year and nearly one per cent of them have been expelled due to poor performance every year.

ET reported that this year, around 30 students were expelled for four years at IIT Kanpur, 12 at IIT Delhi, six at IIT Kharagpur, five at IIT Guwahati and in addition to the recent 10 expelled at IIT Roorkee.

"Many students who are non-performers face trouble as most of their school education had been in Hindi medium. From class lectures to books at IITs, all are in English, and hence there's a gap in understanding," IIT Kanpur, dean-academic affairs, Neeraj Misra, told ET.

"We have done everything possible. From giving them remedial classes, peer-assistant learning (PAL), mentoring by senior students, handholding sessions by faculty and even translations of lessons (from English to Hindi)," IIT Roorkee director Pradipta Banerji told ET.

Apart from English, non-performance is also another reason. Every year, IIT Delhi also expels nearly 15 students who are academically weak.
"Only if they fail to turn the tables, we expel these underperformers. Most of them come from Hindi medium schools and face a problem in understanding the lectures," a dean at IIT Delhi told ET.

IIT Guwahati, dean of academic affairs, M Guru Prem Prasad, told ET, "Apart from the language problem, the students fail to solve concept-oriented papers. They can tackle only the objective type of questions. This is also the reason for many failures."

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