3 Raj distts top performers in school education: Govt report

HT Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Three districts from Rajasthan performed the best in the Centre’s first-ever performance grading index for districts (PGI-D) assessment of the school education system, according to a report released by the Union education ministry on Monday.

The three districts — Sikar, Jhunjhunu, and Jaipur — figured in ‘Utkarsh’ grade (scoring 81-90% on a scale of 100) in 2019-20 in contrast to a year before when no district featured in that category, stated the report, which covers the districtlevel school performances for both 2018-19 and 2019-20. The three districts scored 488, 486 and 482 points respectively, out of 600, the report stated.

While the ministry has been releasing the PGI report at statelevels since 2017-18, this is the first time a district-wise report card was released. The report graded 725 districts for 2018-19 and 733 districts for 2019-20.

The PGI-D assessed districtlevel performance in school education based on the data collected from sources, including Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE +), National Achievement Survey (NAS), 2017 and data provided by respective districts.

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. These categories are further divided into 12 domains.

The assessment 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 is ‘Akanshi-3’ for scores up to 10%.

No district figured in ‘Daksh’ grade in both these years.