'Maha topping Performance Grading Index gives impetus to strive harder'

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Education officials are pleased that Maharashtra has topped the 2020-21 Performance Grading Index (PGI), which ranks states and Union Territories (UT) on the basis of their school education system. However, some educationists feel a lot more remains to be done to improve the standard of schooling in the state.

Kailash Pagare, IAS officer and project director at Samagra Shiksha - a Maharashtra government educational initiative, said, "The state government has been always striving to be number one in all spheres of education. This PGI has given us the impetus to work even harder to improve the quality of education in the state. I thank all teachers and officers of the education department who have worked very hard and made it possible to claim the top spot and achieve this goal. We aim to do even better now."

The next top six states after Maharashtra on the PGI - which was released by the Department of School Education and Literacy on Thursday - are Kerala, Punjab, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

Maharashtra, Kerala and Punjab claimed the top spot by scoring the highest individual scores among all states and UTs, 928 out of 1,000, making it to Level 2 of the PGI.

Since the PGI was introduced in 2017-18, no state has ever made it to Level 1.

Janardan Jangle, President of Teachers Democratic Front (TDF), however, was sceptical. "How are these surveys done? Which districts and talukas did these surveyors visit? How did they come to this conclusion? There are still many gaps. If you see the learning outcome has not improved it is stagnant. This itself shows what is happening. There is a huge number of teachers' vacancies. They keep assuring us the vacancy will be filled. This is the true situation in Maharashtra. This is a political stunt, the ground reality is different from what is shown."

Basanti Roy, educationist and former secretary of the Mumbai division of the state board said while it was good news that Maharashtra reached Level 2, according to the Annual Status of Education report as well as the National Achievement Survey, there has been a decline in the standards of schools and learning outcomes.

"However, it is difficult to question the credibility of either of the three surveys," she said.

The principal of a South Mumbai school said many gaps in the system still need fixing. "The education system in Maharashtra faced a major setback during Covid-19.

After schools reopened, Maharashtra failed to put as much effort to bridge the learning gaps as compared to many other states," the principal said.

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"A total of seven states and UTs attained Level 2, a score of 901-950, in 2020-21 as compared to none in 2017-18," stated the MoE report.
Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh are the new entrants to the highest achieved level of any state so far.

The assessment is made considering 1,000 points across 70 indicators grouped into two categories: outcomes and governance management (GM). These categories are further divided into five domains - Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure and Facilities (IF), Equity (E) and Governance Process (GP).

Of the five major categories, Maharashtra scored similar scores in 'Learning Outcomes and Quality' and 'Access and Outcomes'. The 2020-21 scores in the two parameters remained at 144 and 76 respectively, similar to 2019-20.

As compared to the academic year 2019-20, a significant improvement of 41 points was registered under 'Governance Process'. Meanwhile, progress by 17 and 9 points was recorded in 'Infrastructure and Facilities' and 'Equity'.

The PGI 2020-21 classified the states/UTs into ten grades; the highest achievable grade is Level 1. To obtain this grade, the state must score 950 out of 1,000 points. The lowest grade is Level 10, which is given to a state that scores below 551.

"The ultimate goal of PGI is to encourage states and UTs to implement multifaceted interventions that will result in highly sought ideal educational outcomes in all respects. The PGI is anticipated to assist states and UTs in identifying gaps and prioritising areas for intervention in order to make sure the school education system is strong at all levels," the MoE report stated.

The newly formed UT Ladakh has seen a significant improvement, progressing to Level 4 by increasing its 2019-2020 score by 299 points, the highest-ever turnaround in a single year. According to the Index, the Indian education system is one of the largest in the world with about 14.9 lakh schools, 95 lakh teachers, and nearly 26.5 crore students from varied socio-economic backgrounds.

Maharashtra's performance in numbers
-State has highest individual score, 928
-Improved its score by 59 points compared to 2019-20
-Jumped from 8th position in 2019-20 to 1st in 2020-21