CHENNAI: Whopping 70 per cent of Tamil Nadu’s districts are educationally backward. Or that’s what the Union government informed the Lok Sabha, at least. Educationalists are unable to digest this, considering the State usually performs well in education-related surveys, but this time, even Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruvallur, and Vellore districts were listed as educationally backward.
“If there is a deficiency in learning outcomes, it should be clearly stated. Simply releasing numbers doesn’t show the cause or effect,” observes Prince Gajendra Babu, State General Secretary of the State Platform for Common School System.
So how did the Union government get its numbers? It used the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), which is the percentage of students enrolled in school out of the total population in a specific age group. This led Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to say on August 9 that 27 of Tamil Nadu’s 38 districts are educationally backward. This leaves the State with India’s fourth-highest number of educationally-backward districts.
But some educational experts disagree. They say Tamil Nadu leads in terms of GER for both school education and higher education. As per the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20, Tamil Nadu’s GER is 51 per cent – better than that of Maharastra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Bihar, among others. India’s GER, meanwhile, is just 27 per cent.
As for school education, the United Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report for 2019-20 pegs Tamil Nadu’s enrolment ratio for Classes 1 to 5 at 98.9 per cent, which is worse than about 20 other States. But, for higher education (Classes 11 and 12), it says the State has a GER of 73 per cent – the fourthhighest in India. The data show that students here have a higher rate of continuing their education.
Is the data faulty?
So there must be a flaw in the latest data, believes educationalist MG Dawood Miakhan, adding that the Union government hasn’t provided any statistics to justify its numbers.
“Tamil Nadu is among India’s top three States in terms of GER, going by the yearly AISHE reports,” observes Miakhan, who is the general secretary of the Quaide Milleth Educational and Social Trust.
Similarly, Tamil Nadu ranks fourth among major States in terms of average enrolment per college (between 2019 and 2020), with about 800 students enrolling every year. Bihar, Delhi, and West Bengal hold the top three spots. As for PhD and MPhil courses, Tamil Nadu tops the country in enrolment by a big margin, and ranks first in terms of women enrolment. The AISHE report says Tamil Nadu ranks third in the country in the male-female enrolment ratio for higher education, next only to Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. In Tamil Nadu, more women than men pursue higher education, it shows (see chart).
The curious case of Coimbatore
According to the Union government’s data, all districts in the western belt are educationally backward, and Coimbatore is no exception. But the Class 10 and 12 results every year put Coimbatore among the top five districts in Tamil Nadu, says Arulanantham, auditor of the TN Higher Secondary School Teachers Association, adding that the districts in the region have some of the best educational systems, though admissions may be relatively low in hilly areas such as Valparai and Velliangadu.
“But these issues are marginal, as the enrolment ratio of both boys and girls, and pass percentage, are very high. Barring the hilly regions, the dropout rates are very low in Coimbatore,” he asserts, adding that when there are dropouts, teachers immediately visit the students’ villages and try to get them back to school.
Learning outcomes a concern
However, if the Union government’s data on learning outcomes is to be believed, Tamil Nadu must analyse the statistics and devise corrective measures, says Gajendra Babu. “Learning outcomes can’t be measured by numbers and grades, as it is a component of a culture and may vary from State to State.
To focus on poor outcomes, the State must introduce neighbourhood schooling. Then, steps must be taken to include students under RTE, and officials from the departments of Adi-Dravidar, Backward Communities, Health, Education, and Revenue must conduct a door-to-door survey to identify dropouts and the associated reasons,” he explains.
In 1924, Madras Presidency brought in the elementary education rule, which provides free and compulsory education in select panchayats at the elementary level, Gajendra Babu observes. “In 1950, a law was passed to have a school every 10 km. There was also the mid-day meal scheme to feed poor children. Since the Centre’s statistics on educationally backward districts don’t have proper data, how can it be trusted?”asks Gajendra Babu.
In high schools in Tamil Nadu, girls stay ahead of boys by a meagre 1 per cent in terms of enrolment up to Class 10, while in Classes 11 and 12, girls lead in enrolment by 13 per cent. While the enrolment among boys is 66 per cent, it’s 80 per cent among girls. As per the Union government’s Performance Grading Index (2019-20), Tamil Nadu is also among the five best-performing States in terms of education. But it stands at the 22st position in terms of learning outcomes, with a score of 132 out of 180.
‘Explanation needed’
S Prabakaran, a high-school teacher at the KENC Government High School in Tiruvallur, says the enrolment of women and people from marginalised communities is high in Tamil Nadu, as well as in Tiruvallur district, as teachers are advised to visit the villages to identify and bring eligible children to school. “We even conduct tuitions at tribal villages, and give out pamphlets to publicise admissions,” he explains, adding that such efforts raised the enrolment of students from 600 in 2016 to 1,070 in 2020.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu ranks first in the presence of Scheduled Caste (SC) and OBC teachers, with 22,508 from Scheduled Caste and 1.43 lakh from Other Backward Castes. Experts opine that if the Union government is highlighting a problem in education in Tamil Nadu, it needs to give an explanation. “They have to come forward and justify it,” asserts Makhan.