State performance falls in access, governance process domains: PCI report
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, November 11 2022: Performance of the state in the access domain deteriorates from 2019-20 to 2020-21, and at least 5 per cent of the students got dropped out in the state, according to Performance Grading Index (PGI) report 2020-21 published by the ministry of education.

Curtailing dropout and ensuring universal access to education at all levels by 2030 is one of the primary goals of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Sustainable Development Goal.

Areas such as enrolment, retention of students, out of total student show many students make transition to higher class/levels and identifying and mainstreaming of out of school children are some of the important indicators through which performance of Access domain is measured in PGI.

The PGI scores are the aggregate score of 5 domains of educational attainment of States/UTs viz., Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure & Facilities (IF), Equity (E) and Governance Process (GP) .

Manipur is in Grade III and states in the same grade include Nagaland, Uttarakhand and Meghalaya.

The state got 142 out of 180 in Learning Outcomes & Quality; 60 out of 80 in Access; 128 out of 150 in Infrastructure & Facilities; 196 out of 230 in Equity and 215 out of 360 in Governance Processes.

In the overall rank, the state is at the 25th position out of 27 states and UTs.

States/UTs like Ladakh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, J&K, Bihar, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Odi-sha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, NCT of Delhi, Jharkhand, A&N Island and Tamil Nadu have made improvement in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20.States such as Assam, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Sikkim have maintained same level of 2019-20, while performance got deteriorated in respect of states/UTs such as Puducherry, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Chandigarh Tripura, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Goa.

To ensure decent and pleasant service conditions at schools, it is necessary to provide adequate and safe infrastructure, including working toilets, clean drinking water, clean and attractive spaces, electricity, computing devices, internet, libraries, and sports and recreational resources become paramount importance.

Manipur saw major improvement in infrastructure & facilities domain while Meghalaya and Karnataka reported highest improvement in the domain.

All the northeast states also reported improvement in the domain.

Education is the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and equality.

Inclusive and equitable education as an essential goal in its own right is also critical to achieving an inclusive and equitable society in which every citizen has the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation.

Unfortunately, Manipur along with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim among the northeast states reported decreasing performance in equity domain.

Tripura's performance remains the same while the remaining NE states reported improvement in the domain.

Manipur also reported decreasing performance in Governance Process Domain along with Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh among the northeast states while the remaining NE states reported improved performance.

Minimum government and maximum governance, the concept aims to reform the government structure and make it more accountable and transparent.

Governance Process domain aims to capture the performance of all States/UTs through indicators making use of IT instead of human interface.

This includes digital attendance of students, teachers, transfer of fund digitally, time taken by state government to release the funds, filling vacancy and transfer of teachers through transparent online system among others.

A Domain-wise analysis also brings out some areas of general concern for all the States and UTs.

In 2020-21, the top score in the Domain relating to Governance & Processes (346, Punjab) has crossed 90% of the maximum points (360) whereas three States/UTs, Viz., Ladakh (76), Chhattisgarh (169) and Nagaland (174) have scored less than 50% of the maximum possible score in this domain.

Moreover, in the domain Governance Processes, there are 24 States/ UTs which have scored less than 288 (80% of the maximum possible score).

It clearly implies that this is the area many States and UTs must focus upon.

The PGI too accords the highest importance to this Domain because compliance with the indicators here will lead to critical structural reforms in areas ranging from monitoring the attendance of teachers to ensuring a transparent recruitment of teachers and principals.

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