Row over parameters for education index
The Performance Grading Index (PGI), an assessment exercise by the Department of School Education and Literacy, has courted controversy, with the ruling BJD in Odisha accusing the Union education ministry of indulging in politicking instead of considering merit in the latest PGI’s evaluation process. The PGI report for 2021–22 saw the eastern state slip to the 24th slot in the index. The regional party took umbrage at this, charging the ministry with deliberately attempting to paint the state in a poor light. The PGI consisted of six parameters under two categories—outcomes and governance management—and allocated scores out of an aggregate of 1000. Odisha, which had secured the 10th rank last year by scoring 877, only scored 517.1 this year. This irked the BJD government, which felt the PGI did not reflect the impact of its ground-level initiatives to transform school education.
This year’s index incorporated teachers’ education and training as a new parameter, while modifying the ten existing ranking bands. Most states have seen a drop in their ranks, while none figure in the top five bands. For example, Kerala used to top since the exercise began in 2017–18. It was in the second ranking band in last year’s assessment but has slipped to the seventh band in 2021–22. The same is the case with Gujarat. On its part, Odisha has fared well in most of the individual parameters, though its overall ranking has had a steep fall, raising the hackles of the state government, which has called for a fair evaluation. While faulting the school education grading system, the BJD has also pointed to the drop in the rankings of the state’s higher education institutions (HEIs) in the National Institute Ranking Framework, attributing it to a political motive.
This is not the first time the state has crossed swords with the Centre on such a subject. An earlier school dropout report by the Union education ministry had also led to a war of words. The evaluation of education—be it for schools or higher education—is uniform for the entire country. Education being a concurrent subject, it is imperative that all the assessment processes are open to continuous participation and have a system in place to weed out any concerns by individual states.