BHUBANESWAR: Odisha improved its position in Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 to grade-I from grade-III last year, according to the report released by the Union education ministry on Sunday.
The state has also made significant improvement in domains like infrastructure and facilities and equity compared to the previous year.
Odisha scored 838 points out of 1000 to make it to grade-1 (801-850) along with Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh and Daman and Diu.
Odisha had scored 749 and 734 in 2018-19 and 2017-18, respectively, and was in grade-III.
The state scored 138 out of 180 in learning outcome and quality, 68 out of 80 in access, 109 out of 150 in infrastructure and quality, 219 out of 230 in equity and 304 from 360 in governance process, totalling a score of 838.
“Odisha has shown improvement by 20% or more in infrastructure and facilities and over 10% in equity domain.
It indicated that the state has started to take action for improving infrastructure and facilities,” read the report.
The state had scored 109 and 72 in previous years, a source said.
The PGI scheme initiated by the department of school education and literacy (DoSEL) is a tool to provide insight into the status of school education in states and Union Territories (UT).
The PGI assessed states and UTs across 54 parameters.
The PGI report indicated that most states scored badly in the domain of governance process which includes shortage of teachers, principals and administrative staff, lack of regular supervision and inspection, inadequate training of teachers has been plaguing the education system.
Through PGI, the shortfalls can be measured actively and regularly.
This is crucial for takingsteps to eliminate gaps, the report added.