Rajasthan's Sikar highest performing district in school eduction across India: MoE

NEW DELHI: Rajasthan's Sikar is the highest performing district in school education followed by Jhunjhunu and Jaipur, according to the union ministry of education's performance grading index for districts (PGI-D). The 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. Also, 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 other states whose districts have performed best in the latest index released by the Ministry of Education (MoE) on Monday are Punjab with 14 districts in '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. On the other hand, there are 12 states and Union Territories which don't have any districts in the Ati-uttam and Uttam categories which include seven of the eight states from the North East region.

The ministry on Monday 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. PGI-D grades the districts into 10 grades with the highest achievable grade being 'Daksh', which is for districts scoring more than 90 percent of the total points in that category or overall. 'Utkarsh' category is for districts with score between 81-90 percent followed by 'Ati-Uttam' (71-80 percent), 'Uttam' (61-70 percent), 'Prachesta-I' (51-60 per cent), 'Prachesta-II' (41-50 per cent) and 'Pracheshta III' (31-40 per cent).

The lowest grade in PGI-D is called 'Akanshi-3' which is for scores up to 10 per cent of the total points. According to the report for 2019-20 and 2018-19, none of the districts attained the highest grade Daksh in both 2019-20 and 2018-19 implying there is ample scope for the districts to further improve their performance in future years. Three districts reached Utkarsh grade in 2019-20 by achieving more than 80 per cent of the score, there was none in 2018-19 in this grade. Furthermore, the number of districts in the Ati-uttam grade has increased from 49 to 86 during 2018-19 to 2019-20, showing remarkable improvements.

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"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 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 decentralized manner," a senior MoE official said. "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.

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 categories are further divided into 12 domains---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).

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The PGI-D report graded 725 districts in 2018-19 and 733 districts in 2019-20 across the States and UTs. The all-India report showed 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%. The only two states, namely Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have scored less than 2018-19. The Performance Grading Index (PGI) is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education in States and UTs at the district level including key levers that drive their performance and critical areas for improvement. The 12 states and UTs which does not have a single district in the Ati-uttam and Uttam are Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Goa, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.