New Delhi: Chandigarh topped the Centre’s Performance Grading Index (PGI), which evaluates states and Union Territories on school education across indicators, including learning outcomes, infrastructure, and access. Meghalaya was at the bottom, a report released Wednesday has shown.
The PGI 2.0 report, a combined report for 2022-23 and 2023-24 by the Union Ministry of Education, assessed states and UTs across six domains and scored each of them out of a score of 1,000. Learning outcomes and quality, access, infrastructure and facilities, equity, governance processes, and teacher education and training were the domains.
The states and UTs were grouped into different performance bands, ranging from 951–1,000 points, termed level 1 or ‘daksh‘, to 401–460 points, termed level 10 or ‘akanshi-3′, which is the lowest level.
No state or UT made it into the top four bands (761-1,000). Chandigarh, with an overall score of 703, was placed in the fifth band, ‘prachesta-1′. No state or UT was in ‘prachesta-2′ or the sixth band.
“The top-most grade attained is ‘prachesta-1′, i.e., score range 701-760, indicating that there is huge scope for improvement in performance by states,” the report stated.
Released in 2023, the PGI 2021–22 report placed Chandigarh and Punjab in the ‘prachesta-2′ band, with Chandigarh moving up a grade this time and Punjab dropping one.
The education ministry, however, noted that due to changes in grading and indicators, the PGI 2.0 results were not strictly comparable with earlier reports.
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Where states stand
After Chandigarh, 10 states and UTs are in the seventh band, with a score range of 581-640. They are Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat, Odisha, Kerala, the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Goa, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan.
Fourteen states and UTs are in the eighth band, with a 521–580 score range, whereas 10 are in the ninth band, with a 461–520 score range.
Scoring 417.9 points, Meghalaya is the only state in the 10th and lowest grade in 2023-24. The state scored 401.6 in 2022-23, indicating some improvement since the last time.
Overall, 24 states/UTs improved their score in 2023-24 compared to 2022-23, according to the report. However, in the remaining states and UTs, the score deteriorated between 2022-23 and 2023-24.
These are Bihar, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal.
How states performed across domains
In the domain of learning outcomes, considered the most important, Chandigarh, Punjab, and Puducherry were in the sixth band, ‘prachesta-2′, whereas Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir were in the seventh band, ‘prachesta-3′. All other states ranked lower.
In the domain of access, Odisha topped the rankings by securing a place in the highest band, ‘daksh‘, which has a score range of 941–1,000. Ten other states followed Odisha in the second band, termed ‘utkarsh‘, which has a score range of 881–940. Chandigarh, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Telangana, among others, were in this group.
The report highlighted that Bihar and Jharkhand made remarkable progress in access between 2022-23 and 2023-24, moving up from the sixth band to the fifth.
In terms of infrastructure, only Chandigarh featured in the third band, ‘ati uttam‘, which has a score range of 821–880. The UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, as well as Delhi, were placed in the second band, ‘uttam‘, which has a score range of 761–820.
In the case of equity, all states were within the first three bands, indicating a relatively balanced performance across the country in this particular domain.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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The local tribal population of Meghalaya comprising of Khasis, Jaintias and Garos are least interested in education. When a society does not have an emphasis on education, people simply don’t bother to send their children to school.
No wonder Meghalaya consistently ranks at the bottom.