New Delhi: Over 13,600 reserved category students dropped out from central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) over the last five years, Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.

Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar shared the statistics in a written reply to a query by a BSP member in Lok Sabha. In the case of Central Universities (CUs), Sarkar said that as many as 4,596 OBC, 2,424 SC, and 2,622 ST students dropped out in the last five years.

In IITs, 2,066 OBCs, 1,068 SC and 408 ST students dropped out. In IIMs, the figure remained at 163, 188, and 91 for OBC, SC and ST students, respectively.

"In the higher education sector, students have multiple options and they choose to migrate across institutions and from one course/programme to another in the same institution.

"The migration/withdrawal, if any, is mainly on account of securing seats by the students in other departments or institutions of their choice or on any personal ground," he said.

The minister informed that National Law Universities (NLUs) have been established under the Acts enacted by the respective state legislatures and as such they are the state Universities.

"No such data on dropout students of NLUs is maintained by the central government," he said.

Responding further to the query on what the government is doing to address the issue, Sarkar said that the government has taken various steps like fee reduction, the establishment of more institutes, scholarships, and priority access to national-level scholarships to aid the students with poor financial backgrounds to pursue their education.

"For the welfare of SC and ST students, schemes like 'waiver of tuition fees in IITs', grant of national scholarships under Central Sector Scheme, scholarships in Institutes etc. are also there, he said.