Odisha has registered a substantial improvement in the Performance Grading Index (PGI) in domains like infrastructure and facilities, equity, learning outcomes and quality, access to education, governance processes to emerge as one of the top 10 ranked States in the country.

The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education on Friday released the PGI for States and Union Territories (UTs) for 2020-21. It is widely regarded as a unique index for evidence-based comprehensive analysis of school education systems across State/UTs.

The performance of Odisha has seen rapid strides in all the indicators in comparison to the PGI 2019-20, said officials of State’s School and Mass Education Department. It has secured 877 points out of 1000 to make it to level-3 along with Delhi, Karnataka, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, according to the PGI index.

The state scored 138 out of 180 in learning outcomes and quality, 71 out of 80 in access, 133 out of 150 in infrastructure and facilities, 221 out of 230 in equity and 314 out of 360 in governance processes, totalling a score of 877.

The state has steadily made progress under the PGI framework reaching Level III (score 851-900) in 2020-21 as compared to Level VI in 2017-18 and Level IV in 2019-20 making a jump of 143 points within a span of four years.

With effective implementation of policies and introduction of initiatives like Mo School, Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya Sangathan, digital learning programmes at the time of Covid-19 pandemic, state-of-the-art infrastructure under 5T High School Transformation programme and prioritisation in areas of interventions have ushered in a visible transformation, thereby making it shine at the national platform.

The prime objective of the PGI is to promote evidence-based policy making and highlight course correction to ensure quality education for all.

The PGI structure comprises 1000 points across 70 indicators grouped into 2 categories viz., Outcomes, Governance Management (GM). These categories are further divided into 5 domains, viz., Learning Outcomes (LO), Access (A), Infrastructure& Facilities (IF), Equity (E) & Governance Process (GP), they concluded.