Vox Populi, a student journalism body at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur released Part II of a survey on January 27 via their Instagram handle mentioning challenges faced by the PhD students. This investigative analysis extensively delves into financial and personal problems faced by students. Following this, it also touches upon mental health issues and stigma around the same.
To recall, Part I of the survey, released on January 26, was about the academic challenges, lab dynamics, and institutional policies affecting over 2,000 surveyed PhD students. The survey shows that 44 out of 63 individual respondents have faced favoritism from their PhD guides in the lab, while eight of the respondents reported facing casual sexism.
Money talk
Highlighting the financial constraints, a total number of 195 individuals responded, according to the survey. The statistics show that 3.7% of students receive an amount of Rs 40,000 - Rs 60,000, which makes it the lowest percentage. In comparison to this, 68% of students receive Rs 30,000 - Rs 40,000.
The highest amount, which falls between Rs 60,000 - Rs 80,000, is received by 7.2% of the students.
In addition to financial constraints, the survey also found that as many as 84% of students are expected to be a helping hand to their families.
Touching upon the subjective responses of Lab Funds, a total of 192 responses were received. As many as 34% of students opined that the lab funds are for research work or disseminated among the students. However, 50% of students were unsure of the funds allocation.
Although conferences are a crucial part of the PhD research, 50% of students out of 198 respondents claimed that only partial support was received from the institution to attend conferences. On the other hand, a chunk of 2.5% of students did not receive any funds yet.
Mental health matters
As many as 80% of respondents reported that they have been facing mental health issues such as anxiety tagged with various other illnesses.
Furthermore, 34% of students have been active fighters of such issues for a long time now.
Talking about ways of combating this, around 62% of the students who suffered from any form of mental illness could battle it out with the help of their friends and family, however, 11% took aid from the Counselling Service (CS). The remaining 10.5% took the help of someone outside to battle their mental illnesses, followed by 16% who didn’t take any assistance until now.
When it comes to participation in extracurricular activities, for which a total number of 181 individuals responded, 70% of the students were not able to participate. One of the main reasons was time limitations, making it a total of 119%. The report also showed that 21% of students were unable to participate owing to lack of opportunity
The survey concluded by drawing attention to the importance of the current lags in the system along with looking forward to incorporating the changes actively.
