NEW DELHI: The capital city has been placed among the country’s better-performing states and Union Territories in the Ministry of Education’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2025-26. While the capital scored well across several school education indicators, the report flagged concerns over declining enrolment at the foundational level and lower student retention in secondary classes.
For 2025-26, Delhi was placed in the second-highest performance band, alongside Punjab, Kerala, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. Chandigarh was the only State or Union Territory to achieve the higher Uttam-3 category.
The PGI is the Centre’s annual assessment of school education, evaluating states across 70 indicators covering learning outcomes, access, infrastructure, equity, governance, and teacher education. The index groups states into performance bands based on scores.
The framework is based on data from multiple official sources, including the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024, the PM POSHAN portal, PRABANDH and Vidyanjali.
Despite its overall performance, the report highlighted a decline in enrolment at the foundational stage, covering pre-primary to Class II, where the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) fell to 102.8 in 2024-25.
In this regard, the Ministry has advised the Delhi government to analyse class-wise enrolment trends and make better use of data available through the Poshan Tracker.
At the same time, Delhi recorded improvements in enrolment across higher classes. The GER at the preparatory stage (Classes III-V) increased from 51 to 52.2, while the middle stage (Classes VI-VIII) registered a significant jump from 106.8 to 115. Enrolment at the secondary level (Classes IX-XII) also improved marginally.