In a significant insight into the state of school education across India, a new government report reveals that Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh, Gujarat, and Odisha have emerged as the top-performing states and Union territories in the 2023–24 Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D). The index, released by the Ministry of Education, also highlights a narrowing performance gap between high and low-performing regions, with Meghalaya identified as the lowest-ranking state in the latest assessment.
Who’s leading ? and who’s lagging ?
According to the report, other high-performing states include Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Goa, Daman and Diu, and Haryana. Meanwhile, states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were classified as average performers. Meghalaya ranked the lowest in terms of school education quality, based on PGI-D’s parameters.
Among the most improved states in the last two years were Odisha, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, and Goa. In contrast, West Bengal, Punjab, and Chhattisgarh showed notable declines. Delhi saw the highest year-on-year improvement, although it could not be included in a two-year comparison due to the absence of earlier data.
How PGI-D measures performance ?
The PGI-D assesses school education performance using a robust scoring system that allocates a maximum of 600 points across 74 indicators grouped into six major categories: Outcomes, Classroom Transactions, Infrastructure and Entitlements, School Safety and Child Protection, Digital Learning, and Governance. These are further divided into 11 domains such as Learning Outcomes, Teacher Availability, Digital Access, Fund Utilisation, and Attendance Monitoring.
Districts are then assigned grades based on their scores. The highest possible category, ‘Utkarsh’, represents a score above 90% of the total possible points. However, the report noted that no state or UT has yet reached the top four grades — ‘Daksh’, ‘Utkarsh’, ‘Atti-Uttam’, or ‘Uttam’. The best achieved so far has been ‘Prachesta–1’, indicating that while progress is being made, there is still a significant journey ahead.
Importantly, the performance gap between India’s best and worst-performing regions has reduced from 51% in 2017–18 to 41% in 2023–24, suggesting that PGI-D has been successful in helping states identify weaknesses and drive policy improvements. The findings are expected to guide further reform efforts under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Sustainable Development Goal 4.
