Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Sunday approved the release of Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 for States and Union Territories.
The Government has introduced the Performance Grading Index with a set of 70 parameters to catalyse transformational change in the field of school education.
Some of the parameters included in this are: Learning Outcomes and Quality, Access to Education, Infrastructure and Facilities, Equity, Governance Process.
Grading
Punjab, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Kerala occupy the highest grade (Grade A++) for 2019-20. Most of the States/UTs have improved their grade in PGI 2019-20 compared to the earlier years.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Puducherry, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have improved overall PGI score by 10 per cent.
In the Access domain of PGI, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Punjab have shown improvement by 10 per cent While in the Infrastructure and Facilities, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Odisha have shown improvement by 20 per cent or more. As many as thirteen States and UTs have shown improvement in this PGI domain. While Bihar and Meghalaya have recorded lowest scores in this domain.
In the Equity domain, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Odisha have shown more than 10 per cent improvement. Nineteen States and UTs have shown improvement by 10 per cent (36 points) or more in the PGI domain: Governance Process.
Improvements
Most of the States/UTs have improved their grade in PGI 2019-20 compared to the earlier years. For some of the States/UTs, the reason for this improvement has been improvements in their data reporting mechanisms while for some others, the improvements have been in specific domains, which have been discussed subsequently.
Eleven states including Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, UP, West Bengal, Rajasthan are among the states that have improved their score by 10 to 20 per cent from last year. While, 10 states including Bihar, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir have improved their PGI score by 5 to 10 per cent.
The PGI States/UTs for 2019-20 is the third publication in this series. It envisages that the index would propel States and UTs towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions that will that will bring about the much-desired optimal education outcomes. The PGI helps the States/UTs to pinpoint the gaps and accordingly prioritise areas for intervention to ensure that the school education system is robust at every level.
In order to reflect the true picture of the respective States and UTs, quality of and responsiveness to data uploaded by the States and UTs would be of significant importance. To achieve this, efforts have been made to upgrade the data sources by making them more comprehensive, user-friendly, and subjecting them to cross-checks, thereby enhancing the reliability and robustness of the information obtained.