MoE releases Performance Grading Index for Districts. Rajasthan's Sikar tops list as highest performing district

As per the Union Ministry of Education's Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D), Rajasthan's Sikar stands as the highest performing district in school education, followed by Jhunjhunu and Jaipur. 

These three districts have figured in the 'Utkarsh' category (scoring 81-90 per cent on a scale of 100), with Junjhunu scoring the maximum (236 out of 290) in learning outcomes, as stated in a report by PTI. 

Additionally, in the second grade 'Ati-uttam', Rajasthan is significantly ahead of the second and third top states, having 24 of its districts in this category.

The index showed Punjab with 14 districts in 'the Ati-uttam' grade (scoring 71-80 per cent on a scale of 100), followed by Gujarat and Kerala with each having 13 districts in this category. There are 12 states and Union Territories that don't have any districts in either of the categories — Ati-uttam and Uttam — which include seven of the eight states from the North East region, as stated in a report by PTI.

The Ministry of Education (MoE) on Monday, June 27 released the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2018-19 and 2019-20, which assesses the performance of the school education system at the district level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis. The PGI-D grades 10 districts with the highest achievable grade being 'Daksh', given for districts with more than 90 per cent of the total points in that category or overall.

Briefing about different categories, it is said that the 'Utkarsh' category is for districts with scores between 81-90 per cent followed by 'Ati-Uttam' (71-80 per cent), 'Uttam' (61-70 per cent), 'Prachesta-I' (51-60 per cent), 'Prachesta-II' (41-50 per cent) and 'Pracheshta III' (31-40 per cent), as stated in a report by PTI. 'Akanshi-3' is the lowest PGI-D grade, which is for scores up to 10 per cent of the total points.

The 2019-20 and 2018-19 reports observed that not even one district received the highest grade 'Daksh' in both 2019-20 and 2018-19, indicating that there is huge scope for them to improve their performance in the future.

In the 2019-20 report, three districts received the 'Utkarsh' grade by achieving more than 80 per cent score, while there was none in 2018-19. Additionally, in the 'Ati-uttam' grade, there is an increase in the number of districts from 49 to 86 during 2018-19 to 2019-20 resulting in remarkable improvements, as stated in a report by PTI.

A senior MoE official said, "Ultimate objective of PGI-D is to help the districts to prioritise areas for intervention in school education and thus improve to reach the highest grade. Eighty-three indicator-based PGI for District (PGI-D) has been designed to grade the performance of all districts in school education. The data is filled by districts through an online portal. The PGI-D is expected to help the state education departments to identify gaps at the district level and improve their performance in a decentralised manner." 

"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," the official added, as stated in a report by PTI.

The PGI-D structure comprises a total weightage of 600 points across 83 indicators, which are grouped under 6 categories: Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities and Student's Entitlements, School Safety and Child Protection, Digital Learning and Governance Process.

These are further segregated into 12 domains, namely, Learning Outcomes and Quality (LO), Access Outcomes (AO), Teacher Availability and Professional Development Outcomes (TAPDO), Learning Management (LM), Learning Enrichment Activities (LEA), Infrastructure, Facilities, Student Entitlements (IF&SE), School Safety and Child Protection (SS&CP), Digital Learning (DL), Funds Convergence and Utilization (FCV), Enhancing CRCs Performance (CRCP), Attendance Monitoring Systems (AMS) and School Leadership Development (SLD).

Across all the states and Union Territories, the PGI-D report graded 725 districts in 2018-19 and 733 in 2019-20. The all-India report observed that 33 states and UTs have improved their PGI score in 2019-20 compared to the previous year with Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Punjab and Arunachal Pradesh have improved their score by more than 20%. Only Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have scored less than 2018-19.

Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Goa, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura are the 12 states and UTs that do not have a single district in the 'Ati-uttam' and 'Uttam' categories.