Page 14 - EW July 2021 final

Education News

DELHI to the private sector and people are
Performance Grading Index politics troubled by the working of govern-

ment schools in the state,” said
Sisodia.
The back story behind Sisodia’s
ire is that since the Aam Aadmi Party
(AAP) first won the Delhi state as-
sembly election in 2015 and swept
the 2020 assembly election again
despite the BJP wave in General
Election 2019, reform of the national
capital’s 1,051 public schools has
been a major plank of AAP’s election
campaigns. In the party’s 2020 cam-
paign and subsequently, AAP leaders
have been show-casing Delhi’s gov-
ernment schools as being as good in
terms of infrastructure, co-curricular
and sports education, and student
learning outcomes as top-ranked pri-
vate schools. Moreover, for several
PGI cover & Sisodia: manipulation allegation years Delhi state’s AAP government
has been allocating 25 percent of its
he second edition of the for states awarded 0-550 points. annual budget to education which
Performance Grading Index In the latest PGI 2019-20, Punjab it claims is the highest of any state
T(PGI) 2019-20 whose release is awarded a total score of 929 (out countrywide. In the circumstances,
was “approved” by Union educa- of 1,000) with 126/180 in learn- its #6 ranking in PGI 2019-20 and its
tion minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal ing outcomes & quality; 79/80 for score of 898 cf. Punjab’s 929 smells
Nishank on June 6, has generated access, 150/150 for infrastructure & of manipulation.
a political controversy. Designed by facilities, 228/230 under equity, and The highest PGI grade and score
the department of school education 346/360 for governance processes. awarded to Punjab and by implica-
and literacy of the Union educa- It is followed by Chandigarh, Tamil tion to the state’s Congress govern-
tion ministry and first published Nadu, Kerala and Andaman and ment led by Capt. Amarinder Singh
last year, the purpose of the annual Nicobar. Delhi is in level III with a is very suspicious in the eyes of the
PGI is to “catalyse transformational total score of 898. AAP leadership, because AAP has
change in the field of school educa- Delhi’s demotion to level III begun a vigorous campaign for next
tion,” i.e, to improve the quality of and #6 national rank has made the year’s assembly election in Punjab
K-12 education. state’s deputy chief and education and based on its track record in edu-
Launched in 2018, PGI ranks minister, Manish Sisodia, see red. cation reform in Delhi, has emerged
states for quality of school education At a press conference convened on as a significant force in Punjab
provided based on data collected June 12, he described Punjab’s top politics.
from the Unified District Informa- score as prime minister Narendra Unsurprisingly, Punjab’s educa-
tion System for Education (UDISE), Modi’s “gift” to Punjab chief minister tion minister Vijay Inder Singla
NCERT’s National Achievement Capt. Amarinder Singh. believes the state’s top score and
Survey (NAS), Mid-Day Meal web- According to Sisodia, there’s a grade under PGI 2019-20 is justified.
site, Public Financial Management secret pact between Modi and Capt. “Proof of our good work in improv-
System (PFMS) and the information Singh to help the latter win the ing government schools is that nearly
uploaded by the states and Union Punjab legislative assembly elections 650,000 new students have enrolled
territories on shagunPortalEL. scheduled for early 2022. “Modiji since the Congress government was
However, PGI doesn’t rank states, has stamped the work of Captain formed in Punjab in 2017. Of them,
but grades them by levels I-VII. (Amarinder Singh) of the past five 550,000 have left private schools
Best performing states with scores years as #1 in the country while because our Punjab Smart Connect
between 951 and 1,000 points are ignoring the fact that thousands of Scheme, which provided smart-
graded Level I, Level II is for scores government schools (in the state) phones to 173,000 children during
from 901-950 and the lowest grades have shut or have been handed over the pandemic, has been widely ap-

14 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2021