Desperate for support, SC/ST students at IITs reach out to alumni group for help

Global IIT SC/ST Alumni Support Group provides mentoring, counselling & job search help to SC/ST students facing issues of caste discrimination & alienation.

With a string of suicides at IITs across the country this year – most of the victims were from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Scheduled Tribes (SCs) – students at the premier institute are now reaching out to an alumni group for personalised mentoring sessions, counselling and help with job search. 

The alumni group, the Global IIT SC/ST Alumni Support Group, comprises about 500 IIT graduates, who are now based across the world and are working in their respective domains.

The group started its work by organising support for families of SC/ST students who died by suicide in the last two to three years. Eventually, delegations from this group started engaging with administrations of several IITs over the increasing issues of caste discrimination and alienation on campuses. The group had raised funds for the families of three SC/ST students who died by suicide at IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi this year.

In the process of engaging with the administrations of IITs over issues faced by SC/ST students, the group had also formally suggested to IITs in Delhi and Kanpur about starting a mentorship programme for SC/ST students, especially given that existing support systems in the institute were unable to address their concerns. 

With no response from the administrations, the group went on its own earlier this year to help dozens of final-year students who could not get placed after this year’s placement interviews. “We were able to prepare and get 25 of these candidates a job in their fields,” Dheeraj Singh, one of the people who started the initiative, said. 

Mr. Singh, who has graduated from IIT Kanpur and later from IIM Calcutta, said that based on the responses from these sessions, the alumni group had decided to start a mentoring session this year for final year SC/ST students set to graduate in 2024, to prepare them for placements.

“The unique aspect of this mentoring session is that the mentors are from the same backgrounds as the students seeking help. They have had similar experiences inside the campuses and are hence naturally better placed to help SC/ST students deal with issues they are facing,” Mr. Singh told The Hindu.