Meghalaya which fared badly in the latest Performance Grading Index (PGI) on the status of school education for states and union territories has however shown some improvements.
It may be noted that in PGI 2020-21, Kerala secured the top rank followed by Maharashtra in the second spot and Punjab in third spot. Meghalaya secured the second lowest position just ahead of Arunachal Pradesh which was at the bottom of the ranking.
However, Meghalaya has shown improvement in the overall scores every year since the first PGI in 2017-18.
In PGI 2017-18, Meghalaya’s overall score was 584, it grew to 610 in PGI 2018-19. The improvement continued in PGI 2019-20 when the State got a score of 649. In the PGI 2020-21, Meghalaya’s score jumped to 716.
In PGI 2020-21, Meghalaya fared badly in Access Domain Areas which deals with areas such as enrolment, retention of students, out of total student show many students make transition to higher class/levels and identifying and mainstreaming of out of school children, etc.
Meghalaya was on top in Infrastructure and Facilities Domain which deals with decent and pleasant service conditions at schools. Indicators like availability of ICT facilities, timely availability of textbooks and uniforms, which are critical inputs for better performance of students, are measured in this domain.
Further, Meghalaya is doing well in Equity Domain which deals with inclusive and equitable education so that no child loses any opportunity to learn and excel because of circumstances of birth or background. As per NEP 2020, bridging the social category gaps in access, participation, and learning outcomes in school education will continue to be one of the major goals of all education sector development programmes.
Meghalaya is also not far behind in Governance Process Domain which aims to capture the performance of all states and union territories through indicators making use of IT instead of human interface. This includes digital attendance of students, teachers, transfer of funds digitally, time taken by the State government to release the funds, filling vacancies and transfer of teachers through transparent online systems etc.
It may be mentioned that the Performance Grading Index (PGI) is a relatively new index that measures the performance of states and union territories on a uniform scale to catalyse the transformational change in the field of school education.
One of the objectives of the PGI is to provide insight on the status of school education in states and union territories, including key levels that drive their performance and critical areas of performance. It pinpoints the gaps and helps states and union territories in prioritising the areas for intervention to ensure that the school education system is robust at every level.
