Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have all scored higher than 90% in the Education Ministry’s Performance Grading Index for 2019-20 which was released on Sunday. Gujarat dropped from second to eighth rank in the index, while Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are the only States which have seen actual regression in scores over this period.
The index monitors the progress that States and Union Territories have made in school education with regard to learning outcomes, access and equity, infrastructure and facilities, and governance and management processes.
Huge jump
Punjab has recorded the highest score of almost 929 out of a possible 1,000, showing a huge jump from 769 last year. The State topped the charts in terms of equity, infrastructure and governance, and shared the top spot in the domain of access with Kerala. In fact, Punjab overtook the Union Territory of Chandigarh, which had topped both previous editions of the index, but has now slid to second place with a score of 912.
Tamil Nadu also overtook Kerala, with a score of 906, largely driven by improvements in the State’s educational governance and management, as well as in terms of infrastructure and facilities.
Gujarat, which had the second highest score in the previous edition, dropped to eighth place. It has regressed in the key domain of access, which measures enrolment of students in school and the ability to keep them from dropping out as well as mainstreaming out-of-school students. Its progress in other areas also did not keep pace with other States.
Lowest score
Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh saw a glaring drop in their governance scores, pushing both States to an overall performance that was worse than in the previous edition. The new Union Territory of Ladakh was included separately for the first time in this edition, and had the lowest score of just 545.
This is the third edition of the index and uses 70 indicators to measure progress. Of these, the 16 indicators related to learning outcomes remain unchanged through all three editions, as they are based on data from the 2017 National Achievement Survey, which tested students in Classes 3, 5, 8 and 10. The next NAS was scheduled to be held in 2020, but was postponed because of the pandemic. The remaining 54 parameters use Central databases, collating information from the school and district level, and have been updated for 2018-19.
