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Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D)

  • 28 Jun 2022
  • 7 min read

For Prelims: Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D), Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE +), National Achievement Survey (NAS).

For Mains: PGI-D, Related Initiatives, Performance of School Education System in Districts.

Why in News?

Recently, the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L), Ministry of Education (MoE) released the Centre’s first-ever Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2018-19 and 2019-20.

What is the Index All About?

  • About:
  • Methodology:
    • Structure: The PGI-D structure comprises a total weightage of 600 points across 83 indicators, which are grouped under six categories:
      • Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements, School Safety & Child Protection, Digital Learning and Governance Process.
        • Two categories — digital learning and effective classroom transaction have been added in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, these categories were not part of the state-level PGI.
      • These categories are further divided into 12 domains.
  • Assessment Grades: The PGI-D grades the districts into 10 grades. The highest achievable grade is ‘Daksh’, which is for districts scoring more than 90% of the total points in that 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’ which is for scores upto 10% of the total points.
      • None of the districts figured in the highest ‘Daksh’ grade in both these years.
  • Significance:
    • The indicator-wise PGI score shows the areas where a district needs to improve. The PGI-D will reflect the relative performance of all the districts in a uniform scale which encourages them to perform better.
    • At the same time, it will also act as a good source of information for best practices followed by States and UTs which can be shared.
    • It helps all the stakeholders in the school education system, including the students, parents, teachers, and administrators to know the performance of their district vis-à-vis other districts.

What are the Key Highlights of the Report?

  • Best Performers:
    • Three districts from Rajasthan performed the best in the assessment.
      • According to the report, the three districts — Sikar, Jhunjhunu, and Jaipur figured in ‘Utkarsh’ grade in 2019-20 in contrast to a year before when no district featured in that category.
    • Rajasthan has the highest 24 districts in this grade, followed by Punjab (14), Gujarat (13), and Kerala (13).
  • Lowest Performers:
    • The districts with the lowest scores (1 out of 50) in this category were:
      • South Salmara-Mankachar (Assam), Alirajpur (Madhya Pradesh), North Garo Hills and South Garo Hills in Meghalaya, and Khowai (Tripura) in 2019-20.
    • The 12 states/ UTs which don’t have a single district in the Ati-Uttam and Uttam are:
      • Bihar, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand.
  • Progress:
    • As per the report, the number of districts in all categories has increased.
      • In the ‘Ati Uttam’ grade, the number of districts increased from 49 to 86 during 2018-19 to 2019-20 showing “remarkable improvements”.
      • 33 districts improved their score in outcomes, but there is no grade-level improvement.
        • The outcomes category includes learning outcomes of students, teachers’ availability and professional outcomes.
      • Digital Learning Category: As compared to 2018-19, 20 districts have shown over 20% improvement while 43 districts bettered their score by over 10% during 2019-20.
      • Infrastructural Facilities: 478 districts improved their score in 2019-20 as compared to 2018-19.
        • Out of these 478, 37 districts made an improvement of over 20% improvement in score and 115 districts made an improvement of over 10% implying grade-level improvement.

What are the Other Government Initiatives in this Direction?

  • National Education Policy, 2020: It aims at making “India a global knowledge superpower” by introducing several changes from the school to college level in the Indian education system.
  • Samagra Shiksha: It is an integrated scheme for school education extending from pre-school to class XII to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education.
  • Mid Day Meal Scheme: It provides that every child within the age group of six to fourteen years studying in classes I to VIII who enrolls and attends the school, shall be provided hot cooked nutritional meals, free of charge every day except on school holidays.
  • Eklavya Model School and Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship Scheme (RGNF): These aim to encourage the students belonging to Scheduled Tribes (ST) community to pursue higher education.

Source: TH

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