– Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai)

Since late last year, Tamil Nadu’s DMK government has been seriously rethinking its decision to shut down a number of government schools that have recorded zero enrolment, following reports that closing them down is impeding the access of a substantial number of children to education, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. With the state assembly elections scheduled this summer, the issue has acquired political urgency, as education is a key governance indicator.

During the academic year 2024-25, 1,204 schools across Tamil Nadu reported zero new admissions, including 208 government schools, 114 aided schools, 869 private and two Central government schools. Most of these are small primary and middle schools sited in rural areas that are experiencing shrinking child populations due to falling birth rate, migration to urban centres, and insistence on Tamil language primacy. Parents are voicing concern that young children are forced to travel longer distances, often without reliable transport, to attend primary school.

“Our investigations indicate that attendance is dropping in some rural areas not because children are unwilling to study, but because reaching the nearest school has become difficult,” says a senior official in the school education department of the education ministry. “For a class I or class II child, even an extra two kilometres can be a serious barrier, especially in rural areas.”

Demographic decline has undoubtedly played a role in this crisis. Government data indicates that Tamil Nadu’s annual birth rate has declined steadily from around 1 million births in 2011 to below 900,000 by 2025-26. This has impacted enrolment in government schools, particularly in districts with high migration or ageing populations. Moreover a growing number of households, especially in peri-urban areas, are shifting their children to low-cost private schools that promise English-medium education.

Although Leftists and jholawallahs tend to downplay the importance of infrastructure, most educationists agree that infrastructure deficits of government schools are an important cause of disenchantment.

Tamil Nadu allocates a substantial Rs.45,000 crore annually for school education, yet too many of TN government schools don’t provide basic infrastructure. An estimated 37,500 schools lack functional playgrounds, libraries, science laboratories, adequate classrooms and even toilets. Schools often operate with just two teachers including the headmaster serving all classes, severely affecting teaching quality and student engagement.

“Even rural parents accustomed to hard lives are reluctant to send a child to a school that doesn’t have proper sanitation and toilet facilities,” says Dr. S. Somasundaram, a Chennai-based educationist. “The government must properly investigate why enrolments are declining in public schools. In this age of television and internet connectivity, parents have become well aware that infrastructure is not a luxury — it is fundamental to learning,” he adds.

The consequences of infra and teacher deficits are reflecting in retention data. According to the latest UDISE+ (Unified District Information System for Education Plus) data for 2024-25, Tamil Nadu’s primary school dropout rate rose to 2.7 percent, a sharp increase from nearly zero in previous years. Upper primary dropouts touched 2.8 percent, while secondary dropouts climbed to 8.5 percent, up from 7.7 percent the previous year. For a state which has long prided itself for 100 percent enrolment and high retention, these dropout rates have raised alarm within academic and policy circles.

It was in this context that in August last year, school education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi publicly stated that the state government will reopen schools that had been closed down due to poor enrolment, wherever there is renewed demand or evidence of school-age children in the locality. “Government schools are not businesses that we close down because numbers are low,” the minister said at a meeting with headmasters. “Our responsibility is to ensure access. If children are there, schools must be there.”

Since then, the education ministry has initiated surveys and district-level reviews, using digital enrolment registers and panchayat records to identify out-of-school children. Officials are also working with school heads to conduct door-to-door outreach surveys in some villages to persuade parents to re-enrol children in local government schools. Reopening, they say, will be selective and need-based, focusing on areas where students are obliged to commute long distances to get to school.

Review of the decision to close tiny schools is connected with fiscal constraints and Centre-state dynamics. The state’s DMK government has repeatedly protested the BJP-led Central government’s foot dragging over the release of Central funds under the Samagra Shiksha scheme (primary-secondary school development) contending that financial constraints have affected infrastructure maintenance, teacher appointments and student support services. Reopening closed schools will require additional resources for staff, midday meals and learning materials, making sustained funding a critical factor for success of the initiative.

While DMK cadres welcome this policy reversal in an election year, educationists warn that restarting under-provided schools requires deeper structural issues to be addressed. Improved access has to be supported by enabling infrastructure, teacher adequacy, curriculum quality and the thorny issue of English-medium education. With the neighbouring states of Andhra and Telangana having decreed English as the medium of instruction in primary-secondary education, the DMK’s Tamil pride education policy and electoral rhetoric is rapidly losing sheen.