Anbumani criticises DMK govt over 'dismal' govt school enrollment

Hitting out at the DMK government over the 2026-27 academic year admissions in state-run schools, PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss on Wednesday labelled the current enrollment figures as a ''failure'' rather than a historic achievement claimed by the dispensation. Under the school education department, the students' admissions for the 2026–27 academic year commenced on March 1, 2026, in a total of 37,554 government and government-aided schools in Tamil Nadu. ''In the last two months, only 1.12 lakh students have enrolled so far. The DMK government is claiming this as a historic achievement. In reality, an average of merely 3.11 students have enrolled in the first standard in each school,'' Anbumani said in a statement here. Claiming that last year, within 54 days of the commencement of student admissions, more than 1.50 lakh students had enrolled in government schools, the PMK leader said that in the current year, that number has declined. Arguing that the decline in enrollment cannot be attributed to the preferences of students and parents, he alleged that a lack of quality education and substandard infrastructure in government schools is driving the trend. According to him, such systemic deficiencies leave even poor and middle-class families with little choice but to seek private schools. ''This constitutes a failure on the part of the government, not a fault of the parents,'' he said. To reverse the trend, Ramadoss suggested that the government formulate and implement a special scheme for improving the infrastructure of government schools, appoint an adequate number of teachers, and increase the funds allocated to the Department of School Education.

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