72 - 23rd April 2010 - Three students committed suicide in IIT-K in 3 years: Govt - ZEE News

Friday, April 23, 2010, 22:15

New Delhi: Three students of IIT Kanpur have committed suicide during the last three years, the government told the Rajya Sabha today.

Replying to a question, Minister of State for HRD,  D.Purandeswari, however, did not elaborate on the reasons behind students taking the extreme step.

The reasons for some of the cases for taking such extreme step have reportedly been stated in notes left behind by them which are in possession of the police department," she said.

To a question by Anusuiya Uikey, Purandeswari said the academic programme of a few students of the institute have been terminated as they failed to clear the requirements.

Such students may choose to appeal against the decision, she said.

The government has received a few complaints of irregularity and discrimination in IIT-Kanpur. But such complaints have not been substantiated, she said.

-PTI

COMMENTS
Kilkil Sachan - IIT Kanpur
Government is provided with false information or providing false information as eight students of IIT Kanpur have committed suicide in four years under the current administration. As far as the case of expulsion is concerned it is advised by HRD ministry and IITK administration to appeal against decision but the fact is that these terminations are done after appeals, before appeals they had expelled 140 students, there is no equitable criteria for considering appeals in IIT Kanpur.

anuj - kanpur
Here are some of the suicides cases that we would like to bring to your notice. •    November 29, 2004: Swapnil Chandrakant Dhasraskar, second year mechanical at IIT Kanpur jumps to death from a IIT Kanpur building. •    May 3,2006: Shailesh Kumar 23 years old student of chemical engineering department(dual degree) iit kanpur hangs himself to death. •    October 9, 2006: Anjan Kumar, second year, Chemical, IIT Kanpur. •    November 6, 2006: Abhilash JJ, a PhD scholar from Kerala, pursuing doctoral studies at IIT Kanpur. commits suicide by consuming poison. •    April 25, 2007: J Bharadwaj iit kanpur student jumps before a moving train. •    April 19, 2008: Prashant Kumar, first year student of electrical engineering, IIT Kanpur hangs himself to death in his hostel room. •    May 31 2008 Toya Chatterjee The 22-year-old bio-engineering final year student from Tollygunge commit suicide hanging herself in hostel room. •    January 3, 2009: G. Suman, second year M.Tech electrical engineering student, IIT Kanpur commit suicide hanging himself in hostel room.

16 - 17th May 2006 - The tyranny of Exams by Sandeep Pandey - Indian Express

The tyranny of examinations
Sandeep Pandey
Posted online: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at 0000 hrs

There certainly are more non-intrusive ways of finding out how much a student knows

Recently IIT Kanpur (IIT-K) witnessed its second student suicide in the past six months. Shailesh Sharma could not face the ignominy of failing in two courses and hanged himself on May 4. Earlier, Swapnil Dharaskar ended his life on November 30. It is quite well-known that to get into the IITs and survive a degree course there involves an excruciating,
almost inhumane, process. These suicides, the outrage among students and the defence of the IIT examination system by the faculty prompt me to narrate my experience with experimenting with the IIT Kanpur examination
system as a faculty member in ’93. The only course that I independently taught at IIT during my three-semester stay there was Control Systems for the final year Mechanical Engineering students.

Being a Gandhian by orientation, I firmly believe that examinations should be abolished. As a member of the Central Advisory Board on Education of the present government I have also raised the question in Delhi about the link between education and examinations. Personally I
have never understood why — if the purpose of education is to acquire knowledge — it is necessary to pass or fail students by subjecting them to the examination process. I told my students that, as professor, my job would not be considered complete until I was able to make each of my
students understand the subject I was teaching.

Examinations were a bureaucratic procedure which should not have anything to do with a professor. If a student failed an examination, the failure must be considered that of the professor and not that of a student. Although the student needs to put in efforts, it is for the professor to ensure that he comprehends what is being taught. If a student is lagging behind, or not doing well in a particular subject, it is the responsibility of the professor to ensure that the student
catches up. Ideally, I would have liked to avoid examinations. But since I had to turn in a list of grades at the end of the semester, I came up with what I thought was the best possible compromise. I told my students that they would get unlimited chances to appear in an examination — which was not a written one — and the process will be complete only when
they felt that they had put in their best performance.

The idea was to make students learn the subject at their own pace. Since I wanted my students to learn the subject, I decided to spend about 15 minutes with each to make them feel comfortable. If I saw that they had not put in their best, I would advise them to take the examination again. Sometimes the request for a repeat examination would come from them. Initially, I was apprehensive about the process going on
indefinitely for some. But to my surprise no student took more than three chances. Four students came to me and told me that they were not interested in the subject. Since it was likely that they were interested in other subjects and wanted to spend more time on them, I decided to pass them with a ‘C’ grade. The rest got ‘A’s and ‘B’s.

Professor S.G. Dhande, the present director of IIT-K, and then head of Mechanical Engineering decided to discuss my experiment with the examination system at the weekly departmental meeting. There was a furore. Most faculty members were aghast that I could adopt such a “subjective” way of grading. I was asked how would I keep a proof of the
performance if any student decided to challenge the grade awarded. But I explained that nobody could have any complaints in my system, because they had already put in their best. There were only a handful of younger faculty members who supported me, quoting the tradition of academic autonomy at IIT-K. I was told by senior faculty members that I should not repeat my experiment and must conduct a written examination the next time. I was of course not happy with this and revolted by conducting the next examination as a written one, but allowing unlimited time and a five-minute consultation mid-way for those who got stuck somewhere. The students had no complaints. I think some enjoyed the process as well as subject and I was happy to have conducted a humane examination.

But I remain a strong advocate of delinking the learning process from examinations. There are more non-intrusive ways of finding out how much a student knows if the purpose of examinations is only to evaluate the student. And when it comes to applying for jobs, employers would in any case conduct their own tests. People have already started thinking about it. Some of the most progressive schools considered are those which de-emphasise competition and concentrate on the development of humane values. If we want our students to become more sensitive to themselves and fellow human beings we must have an education system that does not destroy their sense of self-worth.
____________________________________

The writer did his doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a Magsaysay awardee

15 - 9th May 2006 - Suicide attempt: IITK

NEW DELHI, India, May 9 -- A FIRST year student of IIT, Kanpur, had to be hospitalised in a serious condition after he tried to kill himself in the campus.

Dean of Student Affairs Prawal Sinha confirmed the incident and said the institute may now engage professional counsellors to check the rising trend.

IIT Kanpur is in process of a soul search after two students - Swapnil Dharasker and Shailesh Sharma - ended their lives in less than six months. 

13 - 4th May 2006 - IIT-K student commits suicide - TOI

TNN, May 4, 2006, 01.19am IST
KANPUR: A 23-year-old Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) student, Shailesh Sharma, on Wednesday committed suicide by hanging himself in his hostel room. A resident of Pande Mohal, Nariya in Varanasi, the deceased was a final year student of dualdegree programme at the chemical engineering department.

IIT-K officials claimed that the student might have taken the extreme step under depression after coming to know that he had failed in two courses —advanced thermodynamics and advanced fluid-mechanics. The exams had got over only on Wednesday after which Shailesh had seen the F grading in the two subjects.

According to Shailesh's batchmates, he had failed in advanced thermodynamics for third time in a row and had shared his failure and acute distress with his classmates. "On Tuesday, he came to know about his failure and was quite depressed.

Today he committed suicide after having lunch with us," said a student, who was with Shailesh minutes before he ended his life.

"Though we can't draw any conclusion, it is true that he had done badly in two courses. This might be the reason behind the incident," said dean of students affairs (DOSA) Prawaal Sinha. Sinha said that the body had been sent for postmortem and parents of the deceased had been informed about the incident.

The incident invited strong reaction from the students who claimed that authorities could have saved Shailesh's life by changing his course options. Hundreds of students assembled at Hall One where Shailesh used to live and demanded that the grading be made public. They also took to task Professor RB Chhabra of advanced thermo-dynamics who was present there. "We want to know whether Shailesh was intentionally being harassed by the authorities," said an enraged student.

On November 30, a similar case was witnessed when mechanical engineering second-year student Dharaskar Swapnil Chandrakant had committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the administrative block. The IIT-K authorities had then attributed stress as factor behind the incident. Shailesh is the fifth IIT-K student to have committed suicide.

Civil engineering student M Chowdhary had hanged himself in 1981 and third-year mechanical engineering student Yadapalli Venkat and another student Vimal Jha had taken the extreme step in 1987 and 1999 respectively.