Chandigarh schools yet to attain ‘ideal’ level in HRD grading index

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 25

Even though Chandigarh has been ranked first in the country for exemplary performance in the school grading index, it is yet to attain the highest achievable stage in the index — the ‘first level’ for scores between 951 and 1,000 — as envisioned by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD).

Chandigarh, with the highest score of 896 points in Performance Grading Index (PGI), is positioned in the ‘level 3’, along with Gujarat and Kerala. However, it dropped 18 points against the indicators for which it performed well in the previous year (2017-18). Besides, 30 points were lost due to non-existence of online mechanism for students’ attendance and teachers’ transfers in the UT.

The PGI report 2018-19 reads: “While Chandigarh, Kerala and Gujarat may be in the level 3, these states and UTs still need to improve their performance so that they can reach the level 1 in the shortest time.”

Huge gaps were found in the transition rate between the scheduled tribe and general categories, from upper primary to secondary level and percentage of schools having computer aided learning (CAL) at the upper primary level. A total of 12 points against each indicator were lost by the UT.

“Last time, the HRD took into account only government schools. This time, formulae of some indicators have been changed due to which we lagged behind in the computer-aided learning parameter,” a source from UT Education Department said.

Against the indicator requiring 100 per cent transfer of teachers through a transparent online system, Chandigarh has yet again failed to fill the gap. Another digitally-inclined parameter missed by the UT was the requirement for capturing students’ daily attendance. The UT has scored zero in both these indicators.

In the school index, level 2 means PGI score between 901 and 950, level III is between 851 and 900 and so on. In 2017-18, the top-most score was in the range 801-850, which was called Grade 1. In 2018-19, the top score of Chandigarh has crossed that range and has reached the level III.

Other points lost

The city also lost points on some other indicators also — at least 20 per cent of the state Budget share should be spent on education, upper primary schools meeting norms of subject-teacher as per the Right to Education Act, and difference between minorities and the general category’s transition rate from upper primary to secondary level.