Chandigarh improves 15 points in education rankings

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, November 3

The UT has yet again been trumped by Punjab in the latest Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2020-21, released by the Ministry of Education on Thursday, retaining the second best state tag in school education rankings.

However, the UT has improved its performance on various parameters of the ranking as compared to previous years, scoring 927, against 912 in the 2019-20 rankings.

Last year, Punjab had secured 929 points, whereas Chandigarh ended up with 912 to finish second in the country. This year, Punjab has scored 928, one mark higher than Chandigarh, to share the top spot with Kerala and Maharashtra.

The UT has shown improvement in “infrastructure & facilities” and “governance process” categories.

However, the city has seen a fall of 18 points in the “number of teachers transferred through a transparent online system as a percentage of total number of teachers transferred during current year” indicator, which holds weightage of 20 points. The ministry has time and again asked the UT Education Department to formulate a teacher-transfer policy.

Five points were also deducted as the UT failed to fill vacant position at the SCERT, as reflected in indicator “percentage of academic positions filled in state and district academic institutions (SCERT/ SIE & DIETs) at the beginning of the current academic year”.

Chandigarh is yet to attain the highest achievable stage in the index — the ‘first level’ for scores between 951 and 1,000 — as envisioned by the Ministry of Education. The city had achieved the first spot in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 rankings, before slipping to the second place in 2019-20.