NEW DELHI: India still has to boost digital learning even though the Covid-19 pandemic has nudged most of the world towards virtual classrooms, says a report. The latest Union Education Ministry’s Performance Grade Index (PGI) for school education for 2021-22 showed that most Indian states, especially from south India, are still at the bottom of the chart. This shows the need to boost digital learning across the country.
The only state that performed well in connecting students to digital learning was Punjab, where all 23 districts scored reasonably well. Punjab also retained its top position in the overall rankings, with last year’s top performers, Kerala and Maharashtra, taking the second-best slots in the grading. In contrast to Punjab, Chandigarh, a Union Territory, failed in all categories.
The only state in the south with notable performance was Kerala. However, it is still a long way compared to Punjab. The sole Kerala district to score 33 out of 50 was Palakkad in the southern states. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were far off in providing digital learning to their students, the report said.
However, Puducherry performed better in this category. All its districts scored around 30. Of the 37 districts of Tamil Nadu, only one district, Chennai, performed better with a score of 28, while all the other districts were less than 20. Similarly, in Karnataka, the only district that performed well was Bengaluru South, with a score of 27. Apart from Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan could perform well in this category. All the states in the northeast performed poorly in this category.