As the Cockroach Janta Party’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign draws national attention to the state of government schools, ANI and News18 Gujarati have gone the other way – holding up a single school in Gujarat’s Botad district as evidence that the state’s public education system is flourishing.
Both outlets built their stories around PM SHRI Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan Nagar Primary School No. 24, citing long waiting lists and parents choosing it over private options. News18’s headline claimed the school “puts private schools to shame”. ANI’s three-minute video carried interviews with the principal, students and parents, framing it much the same way: 250 children on a waiting list, government schools becoming parents’ “top choice”.
Neither outlet disclosed whether the coverage was paid promotion, and neither offered the wider picture. Moreover, government data tells a starkly different story.
According to the Ministry of Education’s UDISE+ report, only 54.5 percent of Gujarat’s 1.15 crore government-school students complete their education through Class 12. The state has one teacher for every 29 students, compared with a national average of 24, and 2,335 schools run with a single teacher for over 8,000 children between them.
A parliamentary reply shows Gujarat recorded the country’s highest number of out-of-school children in 2025-26 – 2.4 lakh children, including 1.1 lakh girls, a 341 percent jump over the previous year. The state assembly was also told of a shortfall of 9,442 classrooms, forcing 2,674 schools to run in shifts.
This isn’t the first time either outlet has done this: ANI and PTI ran similarly uncritical coverage of Gujarat’s PM SHRI schools back in June and July.
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