Meghalaya has been adjudged as the lowest performing state in school education for the academic year 2023-24 as per the report of the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2.0 released by Union Ministry of Education on Wednesday.
The state scored 417, falling into the category of scorers between 401 and 460, and has been labelled as Akanshi-3.
Chandigarh achieved a score of 719, and is the sole State to reach Grade Prachesta-1. Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Odisha, Kerala, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu, Haryana, Goa, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan — have scored between 581 and 640, called Grade Prachesta-3.
Telangana, Assam, Jharkhand, Tripura, Manipur, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh are in the Akanshi-2 category, as they have scored between 461 and 520.
Puducherry, Himachal Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and West Bengal are among the average performers.
Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) measures the performance of states and UTs in school education. The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) has so far released a PGI report for states and UTs for the years 2017-18 to 2021-22.
“The PGI has been conceptualized as a tool to catalyse transformational change in the field of school education with an objective of assessment of the relative performance of all the districts in a uniform scale,” a senior ministry official said.
The PGI-D structure comprises total weightage of 600 points across 74 indicators, which are grouped under six categories — Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities and Student Entitlements, School Safety and Child Protection, Digital Learning and Governance Process.
These categories are further divided into 11 domains — Learning Outcomes and Quality, Access Outcomes, Teacher Availability and Professional Development Outcomes, Learning Management, Learning Enrichment Activities, Infrastructure Facilities, Student Entitlements, School Safety and Child Protection, Digital Learning, Funds Convergence and Utilisation, Attendance Monitoring Systems and School Leadership Development.
Following the same approach of state PGI, districts are graded.
In PGI-D, the nomenclature for PGI scores is classified into various grades. Highest achievable grade in PGI-D is ‘Utkarsh’, which is for districts scoring more than 90 per cent of the total points in that category or overall.
The category and overall scores are then reduced by an equal width of 10 per cent of total points in that category or overall points for arriving to the next grade.
According to the report, among the biggest movers over the past two years were Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Chandigarh, and Goa, while Chhattisgarh, Punjab, and West Bengal posted steep declines. Delhi recorded the highest year-on-year improvement but could not be compared over the two-year span due to unavailable baseline data.
“The maximum deviation of 51 per cent noticed in 2017-18 has reduced to 41 per cent, suggesting that PGI has helped these states to bridge the performance gap amongst states and UTs over the years,” the report said.
Despite this progress, no state or UT has reached the top four grade bands — ‘Daksh’ (91–100 pc), ‘Utkarsh’, ‘Atti-Uttam’, or ‘Uttam’.
The PGI report noted that while measurable progress has occurred, much remains to be done.
“The highest grade achieved so far by any state or UT is Prachesta–1…there is considerable ground to cover to reach the maximum aggregated 1,000 points,” it said.
The findings underscored the importance of sustained policy efforts and governance reforms if India is to achieve the targets laid out under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Sustainable Development Goal 4. (With PTI inputs)
