MoE releases Performance Grading Index 2020-21

NEW DELHI: The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India, on Thursday, November 3, released the Performance Grading Index (PGI) for 2020-21. In PGI performance of states and union territories (UT) is assessed in the field of school education.

The Education system of India is one of the largest in the world which comprises of 14.9 lakh students, 95 lakh teachers and 26.5 crore students. In order to assess the performance and achievement of states/UTs in the school education sector, the DoSEL came up with this index. The primary motive behind the formulation of this index is to promote data-driven policy-making and course correction, thus ensuring the dissemination of quality education to children in India.

Till now, three editions of the index (2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20) have been released, and this year’s edition would the fourth one.

PGI aims to encourage the states/UTs to improve the quality of education through competition and with the help of precise identification of gaps, policy intervention and creation of a robust education system. The indicator wise assessment reflects the improvements made by the states keeping in mind their performance and shortcomings highlighted in the last assessment.

Under this index, performance of each state/UT is assessed based on 70 indicators grouped into two categories that are Governance and Management (GM), and Outcomes. These categories further branch into five subcategories that are Learning Outcomes (LO), Infrastructure and Facility (IF), Access, Equity and Governance Process (GP).  In PGI, states are marked out of a total of 1000 points, out of which 640 points are assigned for the Outcome category and 360 points in Governance Management.

Like the previous index, the states/UTs are assigned 10 grades based on their performance in the indicators mentioned earlier. States/UTs scoring above 950 points are awarded the highest achievable grade which is Level 1, and the lowest grade, Level 10 is assigned to states/UTs that score below 551.

This year seven states- Kerala, Punjab, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh- have made it into Level II. In the first edition of PGI (2017-18), not a single state was in this category, while in 2019-20, there were four states in this category. Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh are the new entries into Level II, the highest level that has been achieved by any state/UT so far; not a single state has achieved Level I.

Apart from that, 12 states/UTs in Grade I+ or Level III, including Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Lakshadweep, Odisha, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

There are six states each in Grade I and Grade II categories. In Grade III, there are four states Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Uttarakhand, and there is only one state in Grade IV which is Arunachal Pradesh. The northeastern state has scored 179/360 in Governance and Management and 490/640 in the outcome category. Grade IV is the lowest grade achieved in this year’s index since there are no state/ UT in Grade V, Grade VI and Grade VII.

The newly formed Ladakh UT which was at Level VIII in 2019-20 has significantly improved its position to achieving Level IV. The UT has improved its score by a total of 299 points. Additionally, the states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Chandigarh and Gujarat are the top five achiever states in this year’s assessment.