Chennai: The state’s higher secondary education traversed on an upward graph over the past four years, with the net and gross enrolment rates (NER/GER) witnessed a steady increase over the past four years, from 64% and 80.1% in 2022-23 to 73.1% and 85.1% respectively in 2025-26. NER refers to the percentage of children who are enrolled in schools corresponding to the officially prescribed age for each class (16 to 17 for higher secondary), and GER includes students outside the prescribed age who have enrolled in schools. Meanwhile, enrolment rates in states such as Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra hover between 50.4% to 68%, according to a report released by Central govt’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE).In absolute numbers too, higher secondary education in TN has witnessed a marginal jump, from 17.7 lakh in 2024-25 to 17.8 lakh in 2025-26, according to a report released by Central govt’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE). But the improvement in performance comes with a rider — overall enrolment in govt schools alone for higher education has dipped from 7,32,354 in 2024-25 to 7,24,523 in 2025-26, and NER for elementary education (Classes I-VIII) has dropped from 92.9% to 90%.School education secretary B Chandra Mohan said the UDISE report reflects a commendable performance for TN, marking an improvement in several factors. He added that deficits shown in GER and NER for higher education do not reflect the complete picture and do not indicate that students are dropping out or discontinuing education. “UDISE is a school education database. Higher secondary GER measures only the enrolment of students in Classes XI and XII in recognised schools. It does not include students who, after completing Class X, join industrial training institutes (ITIs), polytechnic diploma programmes or other vocational and technical education courses, which TN has a strong network of,” he said. For the 2025-26 academic year, 83,600 students enrolled for polytechnic courses and 60,355, for ITIs.On the dip in enrolment in elementary education, he said, “The state’s GER stands at 92% for primary, 95% for upper primary, and 97% for secondary, as against the corresponding national averages of 89%, 90% and 82% respectively. The state has also reported zero dropouts at primary and upper primary stages, while the secondary dropout rate is 6.2% — significantly lower than the national average of 9.5%.” He added that the dip in enrolment in govt schools is inevitable as the fertility rate has been dropping.Educationists, however, said the report shows that the state has scope for improvement. “Higher secondary enrolments should be in the early 90s, as seen in Kerala’s case. People opt for other courses because the learning experience is not up to the mark. Govt must take steps to address this and elevate a student’s skillset, which will increase enrolment in govt schools too,” said L Jawahar Nesan, educationist and a former vice-chancellor.
