A quota in a shrinking govt sector cannot be a substitute for the English fluency private employers demand
Mercer-Mettl’s 2025 India Graduate Skill Index did not place TN among the ten best-performing states. The DMK govt conceded the point in 2022 by launching the Naan Mudhalvan scheme to train 10 lakh students a year in English communication, aptitude and industry skills. After Independence, Congress govt under K Kamaraj made Tamil the state’s official language through the Madras Official Language Act, 1956. When Hindi was set to become the Union’s sole official language on Jan 26, 1965, TN erupted. The agitation swept DMK to power in 1967, and the Annadurai govt scrapped the three-language formula. TN introduced English medium in govt schools only in 2012-2013, and restricted it even in aided schools. Madras high court, in a 2012 judgment, found no material showing any earlier policy permitting such sections. In 2010, under chief minister M Karunanidhi, Anna University began Tamil-medium engineering courses; only to suspend the courses for want of takers in 2023. In spite of such a failure, by 2025, TN had translated 23 medical textbooks into Tamil and was exploring an MBBS course in Tamil. Union Education Ministry data show Tamil-medium enrolment fell from 65.87 lakh in 2018-19 to 46.82 lakh in 2023-2024, while English-medium enrolment in govt and aided schools rose from 55.18 lakh to 82 lakh.
When aided managements pressed for English sections in the 1980s, govt orders in 1990 allowed them only as new sections, ordering that “the existing Tamil medium sections in the schools should not be allowed to be converted as English medium section or closed” and that “there should be no reduction in strength in the Tamil medium section”. A govt order in 1993 treated new English sections in aided schools as unaided, with no teaching grant and fees “as in matriculation schools”. TN has democratised access to education, but has education democratised opportunity? But has the state’s language policy kept pace with a global economy, giving every child, particularly the disadvantaged, the tools to compete? Under British rule, English was the preserve of elites. DMK turned Tamil into a mass cause. Language had become an instrument of social emancipation and the badge of regional identity. On paper, the two-language policy was Tamil and English. In practice, the energy went into keeping Hindi out. Successive DMK and AIADMK govts expanded Tamil-medium govt schools as a shield against Hindi; English remained a subject, while Tamil became almost the sole medium. The preference was written into policy. English medium pupils alone paid fees. Tamil medium was protected by order; English was priced out of the reach of people with low incomes. TN could have taught mathematics, science and commerce in English in govt schools from the mid-1990s, while keeping Tamil compulsory. Instead, the govt pushed Tamil further into higher education. Such moves treated TN as if it alone were the job market in a globalised world, a vision contrary to Periyar’s. Parents have moved faster than policy. The Dravidian movement’s central promise was social justice: dismantling privilege built on caste, class and inherited advantage. On language, that idea turned counterproductive. Children of professionals, industrialists and senior officials studied in English-medium private schools, while the masses in govt schools were held to Tamil medium by policy. The state, in effect, ran two pathways, one preparing students for global opportunity and another requiring remedial training before they could enter the same labour market.