Performance Grading Index: After 2 yrs in lead, Chandigarh slips to 2nd spot

Naina Mishra

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 6

After leading the country for two years in a row, Chandigarh has slipped to the second place on the Performance Grading Index (PGI), 2019-20. The UT has been replaced by Punjab at the top.

Even though Chandigarh has improved its performance on various parameters as compared to the previous years, it could not retain the top position owing to Punjab’s exceptional performance, as per the data released by the Union Ministry of Education today.

Punjab added 160 points to its previous year’s tally of 769 to beat Chandigarh, which scored a total of 912 points this year. Last year, Chandigarh had topped the list with 887 points.

One of the major reasons for the fall in the rankings of Chandigarh is the absence of a transparent teacher-transfer policy.

The “number of teachers transferred through a transparent online system as a per cent of total number of teachers transferred” weighs 20 points. The ministry has time and again asked the UT Education Department to formulate a teacher-transfer policy.

Years ago, the UT had approached the Punjab Department of School Education for adopting the e-PunjabSchool Management Information System and online teacher-transfer policy for digitisation of data related to schools, teachers and students.

The move was a part of the State Mentoring Programme for exchanging best practices of states and UTs for improving the quality of education. However, as per sources, Punjab did not entertain the request of developing an online software for Chandigarh.

In the Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting to be held in June this year, Chandigarh will seek a budget from the Centre for creating an online system of teachers’ transfers.

Against a report indicator requiring 100 per cent transfer of teachers through a transparent online system, the UT got a naught. Another digitally inclined parameter on which the city could not perform was capturing students’ daily attendance. “We created a system for recording digital attendance of students during the 2020-21 session. It will be reflected in the next report,” said a source.

For the first time, five states and UTs, including Chandigarh, have crossed the threshold of 90 per cent PGI score and reached Grade I++. Chandigarh, though, is yet to attain the highest achievable stage — the ‘first level’ for scores between 951 and 1,000 — as envisioned by the Education Ministry.