NEW DELHI: Kerala, Maharashtra and Punjab have topped the 2020-21 Performing Grade Index (PGI) that assesses school education at the district level, with identical scores of 928 out of 1000. These states, alongside new entrants Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, are at the L-II level which also includes Chandigarh. No state has been able to attain the highest level of L-I so far.
The education ministry on Thursday released PGI 2020-21, a unique index for evidence-based comprehensive analysis of the school education system in India.
In 2019-20, Punjab, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Kerala topped the index.
Among the L-II states/UTs, Chandigarh scored 927, followed by Gujarat, Rajasthan (both 903) and Andhra Pradesh (902). Ladakh has made significant improvement in PGI from L-VIII to L-IV in 2020-21, improving its score by 299 points in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20, the highest ever improvement in a single year.
The PGI looks at the Indian education system as one of the largest in the world with about 14.9 lakh schools, 95 lakh teachers, and nearly 26.5 crore students from varied socio-economic backgrounds. Devised by the department of school education and literacy, the index provides insights and data-driven mechanisms on the state-wise performance of the school education system.
Offering a comparative analysis, the latest index report stated that none of the states attained the highest level (L- I). The top-most score in 2017-18 was Level IV which improved to Level II (score range 901-950 out of 1000 in 2020-21), implying consistent improvement across states/UTs over the last four years.
“No state reached the top two levels in 2017-18 and 2018-19 whereas in 2020-21, seven states have reached Level-II. Similarly, no state has performed below Level VII in 2020-21 whereas in 2017-18, there were 12 states/ UTs which performed below Level VII showing remarkable improvement of states/ UTs in the last 4 years,” it said.
Highlighting the inter-state disparity, the report noted, “The maximum and minimum scores obtained by states in 2020-21 are 928 and 669 respectively. The deviation between the maximum and minimum scores obtained by states is 259 or 39%. Arunachal Pradesh is at the bottom. This disparity was 51% in 2017-18, indicating that PGI also helped bridge the performance gap among states/ UTs over the years. The reduction in inter-state differential is also due to close monitoring of schemes through evidence-based PGI which might have helped both the performing and aspiring states and UTs to improve their performance.”
