Improving public school education in Tamil Nadu

The Class 12 student had scored 1,176 out of 1,200 marks in her board exams, which would have guaranteed her a medical seat if not for NEET.

A  year after S Anitha died by suicide, her brother Manirathnam told this newspaper that she had never touched a computer before she wrote the medical entrance test for JIPMER.

. “Sometimes I think the government believes only children in cities deserve a future,” he said.

The Class 12 student had scored 1,176 out of 1,200 marks in her board exams, which would have guaranteed her a medical seat if not for NEET.

She became the face of the anti-NEET protests, ending her life after the Supreme Court held that medical admissions should be on the basis of the entrance test.

It has been three years since Anitha’s death. The pandemic has only worsened the inequalities endured by children like her.  

As the lockdown robbed scores of their livelihood, Tamil Nadu has seen an increase in students shifting from private to government schools, with enrolment expected to rise 25% over last year.

The state government has also assured a 7.5% quota in medical admissions for government school students.

However, while the state’s public health service, spotlighted by the pandemic, acquits itself somewhat admirably, public school education may not fare quite as well.

While some government schools perform on par with, if not better than, private schools, they face serious deficits overall.

School education saw its highest Budgetary allocation of `34,181.73 crore for 2020-21, an increase of about 18% from that of the previous year. Yet there are still gaps in infrastructure, oversight, staffing, etc., that need to be filled.

Government teachers are often overworked, tasked with administrative work that takes time away from teaching.

Even textbooks are invariably distributed late, months into the school year.

Students at these schools often come from difficult backgrounds and many are first-generation learners, yet social support remains sparse.

Even the NEET coaching promised to government school students—interrupted by the pandemic this year—has been limited. 

Despite these lacunae, Tamil Nadu is one of the better performing states in the country.

The government should consider the rise in enrolment as an opportunity to prove that it can provide children with an education that can match what is provided by the private sector. For this, it is not funds that are required so much as focus, attention and resolve.

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