Assam ranked in second lowest grade in national school education index
Assam dropped four points from 50.2 in 2022-23 to 46.0 in 2023-24, and is third from the bottom, just above Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.;
Assam’s score was in the range 461-520, and is tenth from the bottom among the 36 states and Union territories assessed.
Guwahati, Jun 23: Assam has been ranked in the second lowest grade (in a scale of ten grades) along with nine other states, including five from the Northeast, in the latest assessment of school education.
Meghalaya – with a PGI score in the range 401-460 – is the lone state to occupy the lowest grade in the over PGI score, according to the Performance Grading Index 2.0 released by the Union Education Ministry this week.
Chandigarh led the states with a PGI score in the range 701-760. Assam’s score was in the range 461-520, and is tenth from the bottom among the 36 states and Union territories assessed.
In the domain ‘Access’ – an assessment of enrolment, retention of students, transition of students to next grade, identification and mainstreaming of out-of-school children – Assam dropped four points from 50.2 in 2022-23 to 46.0 in 2023-24, and is third from the bottom, just above Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.
In the infrastructure domain, Assam gained seven points – compared to the previous assessment – and is little better off than the other northeastern states, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
In the ‘teacher education and training’ domain, Assam with a score of 52.1 is just above the worst performing Meghalaya (46.8).
The concept of PGI (performance grading index) was developed with endeavour to establish evidence-based assessment system for school education. PGI, a holistic assessment of education system, helps states/UTs to identify specific interventions required to make transformational changes in school education in the light of National Education Policy recommendations and Sustainable Development Goals.
The PGI structure comprises total weightage of 1,000 points across 73 indicators, which are grouped under two categories – Outcome and Governance & Management. These categories are further divided into six domains – Learning Outcomes, Access, Infrastructure & Facilities, Equity, Governance Processes, and Teacher Education & Training.