Performance Grading Index

Why is in news? Ministry of Education releases report on Performance Grading Index 2.0 for States/UTs for the year 2021-22.

The Indian Education System is one of the largest in the world with about 14.9 lakh schools, 95 lakh teachers, and nearly 26.5 crore students from varied socio-economic backgrounds.

The Performance Grading Index (PGI) is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education in States and UTs including key levers that drive their performance and critical areas for improvement.

The Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education, devised Performance Grading Index (PGI) for States and UTs which assesses the performance of school education system at the State/UT level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis.

The prime objective of PGI is to promote evidence-based policy making and highlight course correction to ensure quality education for all.

The PGI - States/UTs was first released for the year 2017-18 and so far, has been released up to the year 2020-21.

The PGI is structured in two categories, namely, Outcomes, and Governance & Management and comprises 70 indicators

These categories are further divided into 5 domains, viz., Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure & Facilities (IF), Equity (E) and Governance Process (GP).

Over the period, many of the indicators in PGI – States/UTs have been outlived and become redundant.

Also, the structure of PGI – States/UTs has been heavily tilted towards the indicators related to Governance Processes rather than the quality indicators. Therefore, the PGI – State structure for 2021-22 has been revised and renamed as PGI 2.0.

In PGI 2.0, the data source for many of the indicators has been the data from UDISE+ and the grades have been aligned with the PGI - District to have uniformity and better comparability.

Reasons behind launching PGI 2.0:

To have more updated base with quality indicators

To align with new initiatives of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020

To monitor indicators relating to Goal 4 of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and

To replace existing indicators which have achieved optimal target.

Indicators in PGI 2.0:

The new PGI structure covers 73 indicators, focused more on qualitative assessment besides including digital initiatives and teacher education.

The grades/level obtained by States/UTs in previous edition of the PGIs are thus not comparable as with the grades/levels obtained by States/UTs in this new edition.

New Structure:

The PGI 2.0 structure comprises of 1000 points across 73 indicators grouped into 2 categories, Outcomes, Governance Management (GM).

These categories are further divided into 6 domains, viz., Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure & Facilities (IF), Equity (E), Governance Process (GP) & Teachers Education and Training (TE&T).

PGI 2.0 for 2021-22 classified the States/UTs into ten grades viz., highest achievable Grade is Daksh, which is for State/UT scoring more than 940 points out of total of 1000 points. The lowest grade is Akanshi-3 which is for score up to 460.

Significance:

The ultimate aim of PGI 2.0 is to propel States & UTs towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions that will bring about the much-desired optimal education outcomes covering all dimensions.

Indicators of PGI 2.0 have been aligned to policy initiatives and interventions introduced post-implementation of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 for proper tracking of the progress.

The PGI 2.0 is expected to help States and UTs to pinpoint the gaps and accordingly prioritize areas for intervention to ensure that the school education system is robust at every level.

Findings of PGI 2021-22:

Apart from Punjab and Chandigarh, the top performing states and union territories are Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu. All of these states were put into the 641 – 700 point category.

Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram emerged as the worst-performing states in the PGI report. All three states were put in the 401 - 460 point category.

Delhi was the only state or union territory to get into the highest category for any domain. Delhi was in the top category (941 - 1000) for both access and equity.