TN among top 5 in higher secondary school enrolment

Chennai: Tamil Nadu is among the top five states in the country with 83.4% Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher secondary education, according to a new Niti Aayog report.Among the states, Goa topped with 93.8% GER, followed by Kerala (89.5%) and Himachal Pradesh (84.7%), while Uttarakhand, with 80.9%, placed just below Tamil Nadu.Based on the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data, Niti Aayog said the state improved its GER in higher secondary schools by 13.1% between 2014 and 2025. The ratio among girl students has increased from 76.7% during this time. Educationists said increase in number of higher secondary schools, welfare schemes such as free laptops, admission campaigns targeting dropouts, and incentives for continuing education have contributed to the improvement.Aruna Rathnam, former education specialist, Unicef, said women empowerment and various schemes by successive state govts played a role in increasing the GER. "Enabling those who could not clear the board exams to sit for supplementary exams has kept many students in the formal school education system," she added.Preference for degree programmes was also cited as one of the reasons for the increase. "In the past decade, polytechnic colleges and ITIs have lost their sheen, and more students joined colleges to get degrees in arts and science and engineering colleges," said Sami Sathyamurthy, a retired headmaster.However, the state still needs to bridge the gap in infrastructure and facilities such as toilets, computer labs and internet. "According to the UDISE+ 2024-25 data, Tamil Nadu lacks functional boys' toilets in 9% schools, and 5.5% schools lack functional girls' toilets across the state," the Niti Aayog report said, adding only half the schools have functional toilets for children with special needs.About 7.4% of schools lack computer facilities, while 15.1% of schools lack internet facilities, the report further said. Meanwhile, neighbouring state Andhra Pradesh has provided internet facilities to 99% of schools and Kerala 91.7% of schools. According to the report, TN has 60.8% functional smart classrooms.