NEW DELHI: Armed with a Tamil Nadu govt letter to Union education secretary giving the state’s consent to sign an MoU for establishment of PM-SHRI schools, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan Tuesday doubled down on his charge that the three-language controversy had been staged by TN govt to earn “brownie points and to revive DMK’s political fortunes”.
In RS, Pradhan accused DMK of “creating a fear psychosis” and playing with the future of TN’s youth when multilingualism was the order of the day both nationally and globally. Replying to a discussion on the ministry’s working, a day after being forced to withdraw certain remarks in LS, Pradhan said DMK could abuse him by calling him a “fool” but it could not “fool” the people of TN all the time and “deny” them opportunities to fulfil their “aspirations”. Later, he slammed the DMK govt on social media too.
Pradhan said that contrary to all the noise, enrolment in Tamil-medium schools was on a continuous decline and that Indian languages were perceived as symbols of backwardness. With this, the govt is expected to stick to its position on implementing NEP-2020 in the state.
The letter dated March 15, 2024, which TOI confirmed and accessed from sources in the education ministry, said, “… the state of Tamil Nadu is very keen to sign the MoU for establishing PM-SHRI schools in the state. In this regard, a state-level committee headed by the school education secretary has been constituted. Based on the recommendations of the committee, the MoU for establishing PM-SHRI schools will be signed by the state before the beginning of the next academic year, 2024-25.” It concluded with: “It is requested to kindly release the 3rd and the 4th instalments for the financial year 2023-24.”
TN CM Stalin on Monday had accused Pradhan of misleading Parliament regarding the state’s consent for establishment of PM-SHRI schools. Stalin also shared on social media a letter dated Aug 30, 2025, from Pradhan, highlighting a paragraph where the Union minister wrote: “… after receiving the undertaking, a draft MoU was sent … I was surprised to see that the state responded with a modified MoU… wherein the key paragraph referring to the implementation of NE in entirety had been dropped.”
Pradhan said that according to Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) data, 67% of students are now enrolled in English-medium schools, while Tamil-medium enrolment has dropped from 54% in 2018-19 to 36% in 2023-24. In govt schools, English-medium enrolment has increased five-fold from 3.4 lakh to 17.7 lakh in the last five years, while Tamil-medium enrolment in govt-aided schools has declined by 7.3 lakh, reflecting a significant shift in preference.
