The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L), Ministry of Education (MoE) has recently launched the Centre’s first-ever Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2018-19 and 2019-20. This innovative measure aims to assess the performance of the school education system on a district level, based on data collected from multiple sources. The grading index includes six categories, which are broken down into 83 individual indicators, providing a comprehensive evaluation of various aspects of school education.
About PGI-D
PGI-D has been designed to assess the performance of district-level school education systems. To make this assessment, an index is created that encompasses a variety of factors. Data is gathered from multiple sources such as the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE +), National Achievement Survey (NAS), 2017, and information provided by each district.
PGI-D Methodology
The index’s structure includes a total weightage of 600 points divided among 83 indicators. These indicators belong to six broad categories: Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements, School Safety & Child Protection, Digital Learning, and Governance Process. Each category is further broken down into 12 domains. These categories are then measured on a ten-grade scale, with ‘Daksh’ being the highest achievable grade and ‘Akanshi-3’ being the lowest.
Significance of PGI-D
PGI-D serves as a crucial tool for highlighting areas where districts need to improve. The grading index provides a uniform scale of comparison between all districts, encouraging them to perform better. It also serves as an informational resource for best practices, which can be shared across States and UTs. PGI-D helps all stakeholders in the school education system, including students, parents, teachers, and administrators, to understand their district’s performance vis-à-vis other districts.
Highlights from the Report
According to the report, the three best-performing districts — Sikar, Jhunjhunu, and Jaipur — are all in Rajasthan. However, some districts scored the lowest in this category, including South Salmara-Mankachar (Assam), Alirajpur (Madhya Pradesh), North Garo Hills and South Garo Hills in Meghalaya, and Khowai (Tripura). Overall, the number of districts across all categories has increased, with some showing remarkable improvements.
Digital Learning Category
The report indicated significant improvements in the Digital Learning category. Compared to 2018-19, 20 districts have shown over a 20% improvement, and 43 districts improved their score by over 10% during 2019-20.
Infrastructure Facilities
In terms of Infrastructure Facilities, 478 districts improved their scores in 2019-20 as compared to 2018-19. Out of these districts, 37 made an improvement of over 20% in score and 115 districts made an improvement of over 10%, indicating grade-level improvement.
Other Government Initiatives
In addition to PGI-D, the government has initiated several other schemes aimed at improving education. These include the National Education Policy 2020, which aims to transform India into a “global knowledge superpower”, the integrated Samagra Shiksha scheme for school education, and the Mid Day Meal Scheme, which provides nutritious meals to encourage school attendance. Additionally, initiatives such as the Eklavya Model School and the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship Scheme (RGNF) are designed to incentivize higher education for those from the Scheduled Tribes (ST) community.