As many as 13,626 Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Class (OBC) students have dropped out of central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the last five years, informed the Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar in a written reply to Lok Sabha today.

Answering a question in the Lok Sabha, on whether the government has conducted any study to understand the causes behind high dropout rates amongst OBC, SC, and ST students in these Higher Education Institutions, Sarkar said: “In the Higher Education sector, students have multiple options and they choose to migrate across institutions and from one course/programme to another in the same institution. The migration/withdrawal if any, is mainly on account of securing seat by the students in other departments or institutions of their choice or on any personal ground.”