TN, Kerala, Punjab are top performers in school education: Report

NEW DELHI: Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have scored more than 90 per cent in the Performance Grading Index 2019-20 by Ministry of Education, Government of India. The report, released on Sunday, June 6, found that Gujarat has dropped from second to eighth spot while Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are the only two states which have shown actual regression in the scores.

The index analyses the states on the basis of progress made by the states and Union Territories (UTs) in school education related to learning outcomes, access, equity, infrastructure and facilities and management and governance processes. Punjab has scored the highest (929 of 1000) showing a huge improvement from the last year’s score of 769. The state recorded high scores in equity, infrastructure, governance and shared the top spot in access with Kerala. Punjab has overtaken Chandigarh which was the table topper previous year but now has slipped to second place with the score of 912.

Tamil Nadu has also taken over Kerala with a score of 906 largely due to the improvement in the score in educational governance and management as well as in infrastructure and facilities. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh recorded drop in the scores in governance, pushing both the states to an overall score which is lower than the last year’s scores. This is the third edition of the index and uses 70 indicators to analyse the progress of which 16 are related to learning outcomes. The remaining 54 parameters use central databases collating the data from school and district level.