Remember the time, when some of the popular start-up founders were skeptically looked at due to their inability to converse in English. Communication has been a struggle especially for students who join institutions such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and National Institute of Technology (NIT). Add to that, the two-years break brought in by the pandemic which put a stop to in-campus socialization. “The institution renews its academic system every ten years. However, from the new batch of 2022, IIT has introduced a new kind of class, where they are talking about the English Language Cell, which essentially includes courses on spoken as well as written skills. There will be a compulsory course which every first-year student will have to take up,” Kartikeya Dhakad, chairperson , students’ senate, IIT Kanpur, told FE Online.
Moreover, IIT Kanpur runs Shivani Center, which focuses on integration of students from Hindi and other Indian languages (OILs) background in the socio-academic milieu. Still under development, the center was rolled out on August 19, 2021. Similarly, IIT Kharagpur, has an official soft skill development society named Communique which conducts English language mentorship programs through multiple sessions to encourage students to speak up.
Linguistic barrier, is just one side of the coin, as majority of students belong to the interiors or small towns in the country, the socio-economic issues too play a crucial role. Moreover, it has been observed that students at educational institutions, especially in final years, often face mental health issues as they struggle to find the right job. For such reasons, the IITs claims to have started have students counseling wings which are supposed to help students tackle the issue of depression. In most of the institutions, counseling now is conducted in both offline on campus as well as online. “The online mode of education has given rise to several problems around mental health of students. We have seven counselors and have also opened online counseling by YourDOST, to provide on-call and offline counseling,” Tapanendu Kundu, professor and dean of students affairs, IIT Bombay said.
As offline classes shifted to online due to the on-going pandemic, physical interaction with fellow academicians within the campus became a challenge. As a result, IITs claimed to have developed various mechanisms to bridge the gap. According to Devaki Nandana, vice president, Technology Students’ Gymkhana (TSG), IIT Kharagpur, it has its own online ‘Buddy Interaction’ groups where students receive constant guidance and communication from their seniors in an effort to build a cohesive ecosystem for them. While IIT Kanpur claims to have created a ‘Baapu System’, where second year students guide the newcomers and constantly drive communication among each other.
And now that campuses are reopening after a gap of two year, institutes such as IITs believe that the challenge will reside in re-building socio-communication skills among students over a period of time. For the time being, the sheer joy of going back to campuses is what seems to drive everyone in academics.
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