CHENNAI: For the new academic year, over 97,737 students have joined Class 1. Overall, the enrolment in government and aided schools across Tamil Nadu has crossed one lakh.
As per the data released by the Directorate of School Education, for the 2026-27 academic year, as many as 1.12 lakh students have enrolled.
Between classes 2 and 8, around 8,178 students and in kindergarten 6,796 students had enrolled till Monday. Under the School Education Department, students’ admissions for 2026-27 began on March 1 in 37,554 government and government-aided schools in Tamil Nadu.
“Last year, there were more than 4 lakh admissions. We anticipate more this year as well,” said a government school teacher in Chennai.
Hitting out at the DMK government over the enrolment, PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss on Wednesday labelled the numbers as a failure rather than a historic achievement claimed by the dispensation. “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 Class 1 in each school,” he said in a statement here.
Arguing that the decline in enrolment 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. “Such systemic deficiencies leave even poor and middle-class families with little choice but to seek private schools,” he added. “This constitutes a failure on the part of the government, not a fault of the parents.”
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.