Non-uniform grading policy; social isolation; “insensitive” faculty behaviour prompting the need for a faculty feedback system and not enough placement opportunities – emerged as the major problems faced by students across programmes, against which they have demanded ‘systemic’ changes, in an internal survey conducted by the students’ body at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)- Delhi in the wake of the fourth suicide on campus over the past eight months.
Notably, while IIT-Delhi is a top-ranking first-generation IIT, at least 60.7 per cent of the Master’s students, who responded to the survey, were worried about their career placements for not landing good enough opportunities. Even undergraduate students, around 56.4 per cent of those surveyed said they were stressed about placements.
Also Read| An Open House, A Survey, IIT Delhi Looks at Students Demands in the Wake of Four Suicides on Campus
The institute had on Thursday conducted it’s second yet the biggest ‘Open House’ meeting to address students’ concerns after widespread protests on campus following the suicide of a final year MTech student, Varad Sanjay Nerkar (23) on February 15 in his hostel room on campus. Nerkar’s family has alleged that his academic supervisor had been mentally harassing him. However, IIT-Delhi is yet to come out with its enquiry report looking into the reasons for his death.
Based on the survey’s findings, the students’ body put forth its demands to the administration during the interaction. The open house that went on for over two hours was addressed by a panel led by IIT-Delhi’s director Prof Rangan Banerjee.
While the panel agreed on taking up some of the changes in the Senate, which is the highest decision-making body of an IIT for all academic purposes, many of the other crucial demands were dismissed, the students’ body said.
The survey (an online questionnaire) asking students about what kind of changes they seek in the system, the problems faced and discrimination meted out to them, if any, based on rank, caste, gender or any other was responded to by around 2500 students. The survey form was floated among students 48 hours before the open house meeting. It was carried out by the Board of Student Publication (BSP), a major student body, which is run by students, but has the institute administration at its helm.
The responses were compiled for different categories of students – undergraduate (UG), post-graduate (PG) and PhD.
Change in the relative grading policy
According to the survey findings, at least 80 per cent of undergraduate students and 37 per cent of those pursuing Masters, want the relative grading policies at the institute to change. “At present, the institute is following a relative or a non-uniform grading system, which does not allow students a fair chance. There are many other IITs, which have a fixed criterion for grading such as different cohorts for grading levels. Formal guidelines must be introduced that specify the range of percentage of students for each letter grade,” said a student representative.
Also, students said that a final percentage-wise distribution of grades per course should be informed to all students as and when finalised by the moderation committee.
Out of 560 responses from Master’s students, 339 are stressed over career prospects; 251 over course-work related issues; 238 over social isolation; 218 over SGPA criteria; 211 over grading policies; 192 over faculty behaviour; 119 over supervisor allocation and 64 over change of supervisor.
A primary concern among Master’s students was the high SGPA (Semester Grade Point Average) criteria for the continuation of stipend as compared to other premier institutes in the country. Also, the current system does not provide summer internship opportunities to these students through the career placements office. “At IIT-Delhi, the SGPA criteria is 7, which is the highest among other IITs as well as other top colleges, where it ranges between 5 and 6,” said a research scholar.
Ineffective faculty feedback mechanism
According to the survey, faculty sensitisation and accountability to students’ mental health issues including academic performance was the second major concern among UG students as well as for PhD students, whose work depends largely on their association with their academic guide.
It highlights the “lack of transparency” about the supervisors, their funding and projects as well as the lab culture.
“PhD students are allotted a supervisor by the admission committee directly upon admission and don’t get a chance to choose any other professor. Students are affected by the verbal abuse and/or unprofessional conduct of the supervisor and the identity-based discrimination in the lab environment,” the survey said.
During the open house, many students cited their experiences of several faculty members making “insensitive” remarks or of “inappropriate behaviour”. They demanded that the DWC be responsible for providing a channel for the students to present their issues in an official forum and that a maximal timeline be established for each level of escalation. Issues related to the behaviour of a faculty member can be raised to the DWC and if it finds that the response of the professor is unsatisfactory, it can be flagged to the director.
For PhD students, the survey stated, that the current feedback review mechanism which includes course feedback and supervisor feedback is not effective. “Many students have reported that feedback provided is not looked into thoroughly. Students fear to report the complaints to the department as anonymity cannot be assured in such cases,” it said.
To fix this issue, students have proposed to form a ‘Statutory Committee’ for feedback review of various mechanisms that are crucial – course and grading; projects; supervisors; and departments with low placement statistics must be evaluated. The committee must consist of external members without the institute’s stakeholders, students said.
Social Isolation
The survey highlighted social isolation as another major cause of stress among students at both UG (54.5 per cent) and PG (42.5 per cent) levels. Students during the open house demanded that a Department Wellness Committee (DWC) comprising four or five professors from each department along with a counsellor be constituted. Also, the demands included that students should have two complaint forms available on the portal to submit their grievances with the student mentor and the probation advisor, respectively.
“Social isolation is most common in the IIT system, which impacts undergraduate students the most, as they are just coming in fresh from outside and do not get the support required. This is more rampant in the case of those belonging to reserved categories or remote parts. The institute needs to take serious note of this,” said a research scholar, who has previously been a student mentor on campus.
The students’ body in a blog post about the open house said that while various issues were raised and multiple suggestions made, the administration did not commit to any concrete decision. “The administration pledged to improve community bonding, teaching standards and communication with professors as well as to reduce academic stress and provide assistance to those struggling. While the efforts to enhance counselling services over the past few months were acknowledged, it was evident that the effectiveness of measures was in question and that further open houses were required and there was still a long way to go before all the issues could be resolved,” it read.
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