Ludhiana district excels in national school education, literacy rankings

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, June 29

Ludhiana district has excelled in the national school education and literacy rankings released by the Union Government, the authorities have confirmed.

The state’s biggest and largest district, in terms of area and population, has performed “uttam” to “ati-uttam” (good to very good) in the first-ever Performance Grading Index for Districts of India (PGI-D) conducted by the Union Ministry of Education, Department of School Education and Literacy.

The combined report for 2018-19 and 2019-20 released by the Centre, a copy of which is with The Tribune, revealed that Ludhiana scored “ati-uttam” for all six categories of PGI-D for the academic session 2019-20 and “uttam” for 2018-19.

Among other districts that scored “ati-uttam” ranking in Punjab for 2019-20 included Gurdaspur, Nawanshahr, Ferozepur, Jalandhar, Sangrur, Hoshiarpur, Fazilka, Amritsar, Bathinda, Kapurthala, Mansa, Faridkot and Moga, while Barnala, Mohali, Pathankot, Fatehgarh Sahib, Tarn Taran, Patiala, Muktsar and Ropar were ranked “uttam” districts. In 2018-19, all 22 districts in the state had scored “uttam” ranking.

The six categories on the basis of which the rankings were declared included outcomes, comprising learning outcomes and quality, access outcomes, teacher availability and professional development outcome, effective classroom transaction (ECT), which comprised of learning management and learning enrichment activities, infrastructure, facilities and student entitlement (IF&SE), school safety and child protection (SS&CP), digital learning (DL) and governance processes (GP).

With an overall score of 425 in 2019-20, Ludhiana scored 146 out of 290 marks in outcome category, 84 out of 90 in ECT, 49 of 51 in IF&SE, 35 of 35 in SS&CP, 27 of 50 in DL and 84 of 84 in GP.

In 2018-19, Ludhiana scored 386 points, including 137 out of 290 in outcome category, 78 of 90 in ECT, 36 of 51 in IF&SE, 35 of 35 in SS&CP, 24 of 50 in DL and 75 of 84 marks in GP.

Concept

The PGI has been conceptualised as a tool to catalyse transformational change in the field of school education. It provides insights on the status of school education in states and UTs, including key levels that drive their performance and critical areas of performance.

Aim

It aims at propelling states and UTs towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions that will bring about the much-desired optimal education outcomes.

Purpose

The PGI also motivates states and UTs to adopt best practices followed by the top-performing states.

Methodology

The architecture of the PGI-D emanates from the rationale that an efficient, inclusive and equitable school education system is contingent upon the regular monitoring of interconnected matrices of inputs, outputs and outcomes related to school education indicators, and the development of a quick response system for course correction in the entire system.

Rankings

In PGI-D, the nomenclature for the PGI scores is classified into various grades. Highest achievable grade in the PGI-D is “daksh”, which is for districts scoring more than 90 per cent of the total points in any category or overall. The category/overall scores are then reduced by an equal width of 10 per cent of the total points of the district in that category or overall points for arriving to the next grade. “Utkarsh” grade is for the district scoring the PGI score of 81 to 90 per cent, “ati-uttam” 71 to 80 per cent, “uttam” 61 to 70 per cent, “prachesta-1” 51 to 60 per cent, “prachesta-2” 41 to 50 per cent, “prachesta-3” 31 to 40 per cent, “akanshi-1” 21 to 30 per cent, “akanshi-2” 11 to 20 per cent, and the least grade was christened “akanshi-3” for the districts scoring up to 10 per cent points only.

About PGI-D

The PGI-D is a relatively new index that measures the performance of states in school education. The Department of School Education and Literacy has so far released reports for states and union territories (UTs) for years 2017-18 to 2019-20. The PGI aims at assessing the relative performance of all states and UTs in a uniform scale to encourage states and UTs to perform better.

Data Source

The PGI-D was constructed based on identified indicators and domains. The data for the PGI-D was drawn from several sources, including Unified District Information System for Education plus (UDISE+), National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2017 and the data provided by respective districts.

LUDHIANA SCORE
2019-20: “Ati-uttam”
2018-19” “Uttam”

OFFICIALSPEAK

}We are proud that our district has performed well and excelled in the first-ever PGI-D rankings in the field of school education and literacy. We are committed and striving hard to ensure best education facilities to the students, especially in government schools, with an aim to prepare the young generation for future endeavours. —Surabhi Malik, Deputy Commissioner

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