IITs step up measures to address mental wellness of students

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are rebooting the way they connect with students. With close to half a dozen suicides by students at the IITs in 2023 so far, they are also escalating the preventive measures. The fresh initiatives by some of the IITs include student-faculty informal dinners, roping in parents to interact with their wards at least twice a week through WhatsApp, open house meetings, face recognition attendance system to track students in mess and classrooms (to check if they isolate themselves) and having parents stay at the campus where the students face depression.

On the academic front, to ease pressure on students, most IITs are offering flexibility, like providing more than one exit option based on the credits scored. IIT-Jodhpur has extended the window to complete the undergraduate programme to a maximum of eight years, the institute said in an emailed response to ET’s questions. For the upcoming semester, the IIT-Delhi senate has approved a one-minor and one-major examination evaluation, replacing two minor and one major, said an official who did not want to be named.

The major issue stems from the difference between the way students are trained at the coaching centres and the way of learning at the IITs, said IIT-Hyderabad director BS Murty. “It is time to reintroduce subjective questions in JEE advanced to help them gel well with the type of learning at IITs,” he said. “The performance or competitive milieu is one of the significant factors.