Ministry of Education releases first ever report on Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for the year 2018-19 and 2019-20

What is the News?

The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE and L), Ministry of Education (MoE) has released the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2018-19 and 2019-20.

What is the Performance Grading Index for Districts(PGI-D)? 

Aim: To assess the performance of the school education system at the District level by creating an index for comprehensive analysis. 

Parameters: The index comprises a total weightage of 600 points across 83 indicators which are grouped under 6 categories: 1) Outcomes, 2) Effective Classroom Transaction, 3) Infrastructure Facilities & Student’s Entitlements, 4) School Safety & Child Protection, 5) Digital Learning and 6) Governance Process.

Categorisation of Districts: The index grades the districts into ten grades: Highest achievable Grade is Daksh which is for Districts scoring more than 90% of the total points in that category or overall. The lowest grade in PGI-D is called Akanshi-3 which is for scores upto10% of the total points.

Significance: The index is expected to help the state education departments to identify gaps at the district level and improve their performance in a decentralized manner.

What are the key findings of the index?

No district achieved the ‘Daksh’ rating in both years. 

Three districts from Rajasthan have scored more than 80% in school education performance and achieved the ‘Utkarsh’ grade which is the second highest grade.

Other observations made by the report

Schools across India performed poorly under the category of digital learning.

Around 61% of districts of the country had very little exposure to digital learning due to limited availability of computers, Internet facilities and teachers trained to handle technological tools in schools.

There is also a clear rural-urban divide in the area of digital learning. For instance, while districts in cities like Chandigarh and Delhi scored between 25 and 35 out of 50, places like Bihar’s Araria and Kishanganj scored as low as 2.

Source: The post is based on the article “Ministry of Education releases first ever report on Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for the year 2018-19 and 2019-20” published in PIB on 27th June 2022