They can crack anything except Hindi at IIT, says survey

The IIT Bombay campus, supposed to be
cosmopolitan in nature, is Hindi-centric, feel
more than half the students.
So, those from the southern states find it
difficult to mingle with others and end up
forming their own social groups and sticking to
them throughout their stay in the institute.
These are some of the findings of an extensive
survey conducted by IIT Bombay students.
They have compiled it in a report, "We don't
need no segregation", published in the latest
issue of the campus newspaper "Insight".
The survey finds that 83% students in the
campus are fluent in Hindi while 17% are not.
Of those who have a tough time adjusting in
the campus because they don't know Hindi,
"89% are from south India. And 78% speak
Telugu", according to the report.
The sprawling IIT-B campus in Powai is
residential with more than 6,000 students
from across the country studying in various
undergrad, postgrad and research courses.
According to the report, over 56% students
feel the campus is Hindi-centric despite the
medium of teaching being purely English. "Not
knowing Hindi can be a problem as it is an
informal pre-requisite for entering various
social circles and clubs," finds the survey
which also says non-Hindi speaking students
try to pick up Hindi but always feel other
would make fun of them.
A computer science and engineering student
from Warangal said: "Hindi is almost an alien
language in my hometown. It is a third
language in schools. Though teaching, books,
presentations... everything is in English, Hindi
rules outside the class, in the hostels, mess
and even at sports grounds."
Lack of English knowledge leads to poor
marks
Though the dean of students' affairs claims
that the institute provides English training for
non-English medium students, a survey among
freshers reveals the institute's efforts are too
little and ineffective. Students who wrote JEE in
Hindi struggle in academics, which is purely in
English and score poor in exams.
Reserve category students score poor
The survey highlights an issue that has been
raised by the faculty time to time: many
reserve category student find it difficult to
cope with studies and fare poor in the exams.