Chandigarh: Both Punjab and Haryana dropped down six notches in the national Performance Grading Index (PGI) of school education in 2018-19 since the previous year. The joint capital of the two states, the Union Territory of Chandigarh, has remained on top of the heap for the second consecutive year.
According to a report of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) for the year 2018-19, Haryana has come down to the 10th position from fourth in 2017-18 and Punjab has dropped from its 7th position to the 13th position during the same period.
MHRD’s Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) assesses the quality of school education through a Performance Grading Index (PGI). The PGI for states and UTs was first published in 2019 for 2017-18.
The PGI is structured in two categories — Outcomes and Governance & Management — and comprises 70 indicators with a total weightage of 1,000.
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How states fared in national Performance Grading Index
Chandigarh has scored 896 in 2018-19, a major jump from its 2017-18 score of 841. Both these years Chandigarh remained number one in the country.
The report says Gujarat and Kerala have also obtained a score ranging between 851 and 900, which translated into Grade I+ and Level III, securing second and third positions, respectively among 37 states and UTs. No state managed to attain Level I (951- 1,000) and Level II (901-950).
Haryana’s score dropped from 787 to 783 during this period. In fact, only two states, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, scored less than what they had in 2017-18. All other states showed an increase in the total score, though not every one could better their ranks.
Punjab improved by 16 points from its 2017-18 score of 753. But it’s ranking fell because other states showed larger improvements in their scores. Punjab is among the 15 states and UTs that have improved their PGI score but by less than 5 per cent.
Both Punjab and Haryana, along with 11 other states, are in the score bracket of 751 to 800, which translates into Grade II and Level V. Only Arunachal Pradesh is in Grade VI, which comprises score range of 551-600, the lowest in the country.
The other states ranking above Haryana (10) are Dadra & Nagar Haveli (9), Puducherry (8), Tamil Nadu (7), Himachal Pradesh (6), Maharashtra (5) and NCT of Delhi (4). On the 11th and 12th positions are Goa and Madhya Pradesh, respectively.
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Performance in domain categories
In the broad domain category of “Outcomes” — assessing the students’ scores in Languages, Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences — Haryana was at the 20th position in the domain of “Learning outcomes and quality”, and Punjab was at the 26th position. Chandigarh is at number two position in the country in this domain.
Under the domain “Access” — which includes an evaluation of enrolment and retention of students in schools — Haryana was second in the country and Punjab 24th. Chandigarh secured the fifth position.
In “Infrastructure and Facilities” — which relates to the availability of rooms, labs, libraries, reading material, furniture etc in schools — Punjab was fourth and Haryana was seventh. Chandigarh was at the second position.
In terms of “Equity” — which assesses schools for an equitable performance of SC/ST students as compared to general category students; urban students vis-a-vis rural students; government schools vis-a-vis aided schools — Punjab was on the 12th position and Haryana on the 19th. Chandigarh secured the fifth position.
In the domain of “Governance Processes”, which falls in the category of Governance & Management, Haryana secured the 13th position and Punjab 15th. Chandigarh was second in the country. In this domain, a school is assessed for staff strength, inspections, administrative processes etc.
Haryana showed a 9 per cent improvement in the infrastructure domain while fell by almost 4 per cent in the equity domain. Punjab showed a 7.5 per cent improvement in governance processes but registered an over 11 per cent decline in access. Chandigarh showed an almost 14 per cent increase in the governance processes domain and a less than 1 per cent improvement in the equity domain.
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