By Student organisations across various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have joined hands to demand proper implementation of reservations in the institutes.
The demand comes after data from the Ministry of Education revealed a lack of representation of Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates in the PhD programmes and faculty positions in all 23 IITs.
“IITs are among the ‘elite’ higher education institutions in the country built with the common people’s money and undertake high quality research with huge funding from the public sector. The denial of the constitutional guarantees to the historically discriminated and marginalized groups in these institutes has significant socio-economic ramifications. Higher education and research are important means of achieving social mobility and overcoming social inequalities,” said a joint statement by Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), IIT Bombay, Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC) and ChintaBAR, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi for Justice, Freedom and Democracy, Science Education Group, IIT Kharagpur, Students for Change, IIT BHU, and concerned students from IIT Guwahati, IIT Gandhinagar, and IIT Mandi.
