Schools poor in digital learning,180 districts score less than 10%

The Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2019-20 shows that schools across India performed poorly under the category of digital learning, which threw up the lowest scores compared to the other parameters which were considered while creating the index.

In the index, as many as 180 districts scored less than 10 per cent on digital learning, 146 districts scored 11 to 20 per cent, while 125 districts had scores between 21 and 30 per cent.

The report also underlines the clear rural-urban divide in the area of digital learning. For instance, while districts in cities like Chandigarh and Delhi scored between 25 and 35 out of 50, places like Bihar’s Araria and Kishanganj scored as low as 2.

Backward districts like Assam’s South Salmara-Mankachar and Tripura’s Dhalai scored 1. The district-wise performance on digital learning was drawn up based on the number of schools with computers/laptops, Internet facility, student-to-computer ratio and percentage of teachers trained to use and teach through computers.

In contrast, in terms of learning outcomes, no district scored below 10 per cent, 12 scored between 11 and 20 per cent, while as many as 309 scored between 51 and 60 per cent.

The Centre had released the state-wise PGI index for the year 2019-20 in June 2021. Chandigarh and the states of Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were the best performers in the index.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the changes required in our existing system in terms of the adoption of digital learning as part of mainstream learning to continue education at home… This necessitated a need for a domain on digital learning in PGI-D, which is not there in state PGI.

“Under the digital learning category, 20 districts have shown over 20 per cent improvement in score and 43 districts showed improvement of over 10 per cent in score during 2019-20 as compared to 2018-19, resulting in grade-level progress,” states the PGI-D report.