The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 has exposed the dire state of education in Tamil Nadu, highlighting a systemic collapse in foundational literacy and numeracy. Yet, The News Minute (TNM), led by Dhanya Rajendran, has shamelessly twisted these alarming findings into a tale of “progress” and “improvement.” This is not journalism—it’s a calculated effort to mislead the public and shield the Dravidian Model from scrutiny. By selectively using the abysmal 2022 data as a benchmark, TNM paints a false picture of recovery, ignoring the harsh reality that Tamil Nadu’s learning outcomes remain stagnant or worse compared to pre-pandemic levels. The truth? Tamil Nadu’s students can barely read or do basic maths, and TNM is running interference to protect those responsible.
Let’s dissect the lies and distortions peddled by TNM.
Framing Decline As Progress
TNM’s article claims there are “improvements in reading and arithmetic skills” since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a blatant misrepresentation. The truth is that learning outcomes in 2024 remain worse or stagnant compared to pre-pandemic levels. Instead of acknowledging Tamil Nadu’s failure to recover, TNM cherry-picks data from the pandemic-ravaged 2022 numbers to create a false sense of progress.
The reality: There is a serious learning crisis in Tamil Nadu. Let’s take a look at the data.
Class 5 Reading Levels
TNM highlights that 37% of Class 5 government school students can read a Class 2-level text, up from 26% in 2022.
What they conveniently omit: In 2018, this number was 46.3%. Instead of progress, this is a failure to regain pre-pandemic learning levels.
The truth: 64.4% of Class 5 students still cannot read a simple Class 2-level text in Tamil.
Class 8 Reading Levels
TNM notes 62.2% of Class 8 students can read a Class 2-level text, slightly down from 62.8% in 2022.
What they ignore: In 2018, this number was 75%. The decline is undeniable. This means almost 40% of Class 8 students are functionally illiterate beyond second grade.
Class 3 Reading Levels: A Catastrophe
- 8.6% cannot even read letters.
- 18.2% can read letters but not words.
- 36.3% can read words but not a Class 1-level text.
- Only 12% can read at a Class 2 level.
The Learning Crisis In Government And Private Schools
- 86.8% of Class 3 government students cannot read a Class 2 text.
- 90% of private school students in Class 3 also fail this benchmark.
- 63% of Class 5 government students can’t read a Class 2 text, while even 32.3% of private school students fail this basic test.
TNM claims Tamil Nadu has “shown progress” because Class 5 reading levels improved from 26% (2022) to 37% (2024). But they deliberately ignore that this number was 46.3% in 2018. Tamil Nadu students were far better off before COVID, and the state still hasn’t recovered.
Instead of reporting this learning collapse, TNM chooses to compare 2024 data to 2022—a period of severe pandemic-related disruptions—to manipulate the narrative.
Whitewashing The Numeracy Disaster
TNM’s article briefly mentions arithmetic challenges but fails to convey the full extent of the crisis. The ASER 2024 report reveals a steep decline in numeracy skills, showing that Tamil Nadu’s students are struggling with even the most basic math concepts.
- 80% of Class 3 students struggle with simple subtraction.
- 60% of Class 8 students cannot solve a basic division problem.
- 67.3% of Class 8 students cannot even perform subtraction.
The gap between government and private schools is equally alarming:
- Only 27.6% of Class 3 government students and 28.2% of private school students can perform subtraction.
- By Class 8, just 37.8% of government school students and 46.8% of private school students can solve a basic division problem.
This is not just a post-pandemic issue—it’s part of a decade-long decline. In 2018, 49.6% of Class 8 government school students could do division. That number fell to 43.5% in 2022 and now stands at just 37.8% in 2024.
Even among private school students, division proficiency in Class 8 is at 46.8%—still far below pre-pandemic levels.
The ASER report also shows a steady decline in Tamil Nadu’s division skills since 2014.
Yet TNM tries to spin this as “recovery”, ignoring the fact that Tamil Nadu’s math proficiency has been in freefall for years. Instead of exposing this alarming trend, they focus on small gains from 2022 while conveniently overlooking how much worse students are compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Selective Reporting on Enrollment Declines
Tamil Nadu is seeing a drop in school enrollment, but TNM glosses over this alarming trend.
- Enrollment for boys in Classes 1-5 has fallen from 71.1% in 2022 to 62.2% in 2024.
- For girls, it has dropped from 75.4% to 67%.
- In Classes 6-8, enrollment for boys has dropped from 76.2% to 71.3%, and for girls, from 80.8% to 75.3%.
Instead of investigating why Tamil Nadu’s school system is failing to keep students enrolled, TNM distracts its readers with irrelevant digital literacy stats. While access to smartphones and digital skills are important, they cannot compensate for the catastrophic failure to teach children basic reading and math.
Digital Literacy: A Convenient Distraction
TNM highlights increased access to smartphones and students’ ability to browse the internet. But how does that help when children can’t even read or do basic math? What’s the point of knowing how to set an alarm on a smartphone when a student can’t read a second-grade textbook?
This is nothing more than a smokescreen. Digital skills cannot replace foundational literacy and numeracy. TNM knows this but chooses to distract from the actual crisis.
The Bigger Picture: A Decade of Decline
TNM’s article completely ignores the long-term trends highlighted in the ASER 2024 report. For instance:
– The percentage of Class 8 students capable of doing division has been steadily declining since 2014.
– Reading levels in Tamil Nadu have consistently lagged behind national averages, with no significant improvement over the past decade.
By focusing solely on the 2022-2024 comparison, TNM is obscuring the fact that Tamil Nadu’s education system has been in decline for years. This is not just a post-pandemic issue; it is a systemic failure that demands urgent attention.
Why Is TNM Covering Up the Truth?
Instead of exposing the Dravidian Model’s failures in education, TNM is busy whitewashing the crisis. Why?
Their entire narrative is based on propping up the Tamil Nadu government while demonizing other states.
They downplay the disastrous drop in learning levels since 2018 and instead compare 2024 numbers to the rock-bottom 2022 figures to claim progress.
They refuse to acknowledge that Tamil Nadu’s pre-COVID education system was significantly stronger – is it because someone else other than the DMK was in power?
They completely ignore the fact that even private school students are underperforming, showing that the crisis is widespread and not limited to government schools.
It would do well for The News Minute to change its current named to The New Murasoli as they keep buttressing the DMK’s Dravidian Model time and again.
The Bottom Line: Tamil Nadu’s Education System Is In Crisis
The ASER 2024 report is a wake-up call: Tamil Nadu’s students cannot read, cannot do basic math, and are falling behind year after year. The numbers prove it.
But instead of honest journalism, The News Minute has chosen outright propaganda for their Dravidianist paymasters. They are manipulating statistics to fool the public into thinking things are improving when, in reality, the state’s education system is falling apart.
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