The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L), Education Ministry on Thursday released the Performance Grading Index (PGI) for states and Union Territories for 2020-21, a unique index for evidence based comprehensive analysis of school education system in India.
A total of seven states and UTs, including Kerala, Punjab, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh have attained Level II (score 901-950) in 2020-21 as compared to none in 2017-18 and four in 2019-20.
Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh are the new entrants to highest achieved level of any state so far.
The newly formed UT, Ladakh has made significant improvement in PGI from Level 8 to Level 4 in 2020-21 or improved its score by 299 points in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20 resulting into highest ever improvement in a single year.
The PGI structure comprises of 1000 points across 70 indicators grouped into two categories viz., Outcomes, Governance Management (GM). These categories are further divided into five domains, viz., Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure& Facilities (IF), Equity (E) & Governance Process (GP).
As was done in the previous years, PGI 2020-21 classified the States/UTs into ten grades viz., highest achievable Grade is Level 1, which is for State/UT scoring more than 950 points out of total of 1000 points. The lowest grade is Level 10 which is for score below 551.
The Indian Education System is one of the largest in the world. It has about 14.9 lakh schools and 95 lakh teachers, and nearly 26.5 crore students from varied socio-economic backgrounds.
The DoSE&L devised the PGI for states and UT to provide insights and data driven mechanism on the performance and achievements of on the success of school education across the country.
The prime objective of PGI is to promote evidence-based policy making and highlight course correction to ensure quality education for all.
So far, DoSE&L has released PGI report for the year 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. The present report is for the year 2020-21.
The ultimate aim of PGI is to propel States & UTs towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions that will bring about the much-desired optimal education outcomes covering all dimensions.
The PGI is expected to help States and UTs to pinpoint the gaps and accordingly prioritize areas for intervention to ensure that the school education system is robust at every level.
The indicator-wise PGI score shows the areas where a state needs to improve. The PGI will reflect the relative performance of all the States/UTs in a uniform scale which encourages them to perform better and to adopt best practices followed by performers.
PGI report for 2020-21 can be accessed at https://pgi.udiseplus.gov.in/#/home
