Recently, the Ministry of Education’s Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L) released the combined report of the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22. This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the performance of the school education system at the district level, helping identify areas that require intervention for transformational changes. The PGI-D graded 742 districts during 2020-21 and 748 districts during 2021-22 across India.
What is the Performance Grading Index (PGI)?
The Performance Grading Index (PGI) was designed by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, and was launched in 2017. Its purpose is to assist states and union territories (UTs) in identifying specific interventions necessary to bring about transformative improvements in school education.
Understanding the PGI-D Index
- The PGI-D is a tool used to assess the performance of the school education system at the district level. It creates an index for comprehensive analysis, evaluating district-level performance based on data collected from various sources, including the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2017, Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), and data provided by respective districts.
- The PGI-D evaluates districts across six categories, comprising a total weightage of 600 points across 83 indicators. The categories are as follows: Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements, School Safety & Child Protection, Digital Learning, and Governance Process.
Key Findings of the PGI-D Report
The PGI-D report highlights several key findings that shed light on the performance of districts across India. Here are some notable observations:
- Grading System: The PGI-D grades districts into 10 grades. The highest grade achievable is ‘Daksh,’ awarded to districts scoring over 90 percent of the total points in a category or overall. It is followed by ‘Utkarsh’ (81% to 90%), ‘Ati Uttam’ (71% to 80%), ‘Uttam’ (61% to 70%), ‘Prachesta-1’ (51% to 60%), and ‘Prachesta-2’ (41% to 50%). The lowest grade in PGI-D is ‘Akanshi-3,’ given to districts scoring up to 10% of the total points.
- Top Performing Districts: Three districts from Rajasthan, namely Sikar, Jhunjhunu, and Jaipur, stood out as the best performers in the assessment. In 2019-20, they achieved the ‘Utkarsh’ grade, a significant improvement compared to the previous year when no district reached that category. Rajasthan has the highest number of districts (24) in the ‘Utkarsh’ grade, followed by Punjab (14), Gujarat (13), and Kerala (13).
- Lowest Scoring Districts: The districts with the lowest scores in the PGI-D assessment in 2019-20 were South Salmara-Mankachar (Assam), Alirajpur (Madhya Pradesh), North Garo Hills, and South Garo Hills (Meghalaya), and Khowai (Tripura).
- States/UTs with Improvement Potential: Twelve states and UTs, namely Bihar, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Uttarakhand, did not have a single district in the ‘Ati-Uttam’ and ‘Uttam’ grades.
- Digital Learning Progress: In the Digital Learning category, 20 districts showed improvement of over 20% compared to 2018-19, while 43 districts enhanced their scores by more than 10% during 2019-20.
The Performance Grading Index for Districts plays a crucial role in assessing and improving the quality of school education at the district level. By identifying areas for improvement, it enables policymakers and education authorities to implement targeted interventions. The findings of the PGI-D report serve as a roadmap for enhancing the overall performance of the school education system in India and ensuring that every child receives quality education.
