Punjab is among top three states in the central education ministry’s Performance Grading Index 2020-21 released on Thursday and among seven states on level II, whereas Delhi with its AAP-hyped education model could reach only level III and finish 29 marks below Punjab. The seven states and UTs with a level II score of 901 to 950 are Punjab, Kerala, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh. The performance was assessed on 70 parameters in five domains, and Punjab trailed only in ‘learning outcome and quality’. The scores of National Achievement Survey from 2017 were taken. Punjab had topped in the NAS 2021, and had those scores been used, the state would have been even further ahead of its competitors. Edn scores: Pb among top 3, leads Delhi
Kerala and Maharashtra are in the top three with Punjab, each getting an overall score of 928 out of 1,000 while Chandigarh is at 927. Delhi’s score is 899 and it compares with Punjab only in ‘access’, a domain in which both Punjab and Delhi have scored 79 out of 80.
Punjab is at the top in ‘infrastructure and facilities’ (150/150) and ‘governance processes’ (348/360). It shares the top slot with two others in ‘access’ and in ‘equity’, it is at number two with 225 marks, while Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have scored 226 each.
Punjab credits its best rating in ‘infrastructure and facilities’ to volunteer effort from local communities and the NRIs, and how the teachers and heads anchored the additions to schools.
Punjab was at 22nd spot in the first PG Index in the year 2017-18. Next year, it improved to 13th, while in 2020, it had the highest score of 929 due to reforms pushed during Captain Amarinder Singh’s tenure as chief minister and anchored by then-then education secretary Krishan Kumar.
Even as director general of school education during the tenure of Parkash Singh Badal as CM from the late 2007 to February 2011, Kumar had pushed these reforms. When he was shifted to higher education after Charanjit Singh Channi took over as CM, the-then education and higher education minister Pargat Singh argued that the sector needed desperate reforms. Punjab topped NAS-2021 in all subjects of the third, fifth and eighth classes, while in Class X assessment, it won top three positions in five, topping in mathematics. Delhi was a laggard in all four classes. After initial silence when the NAS results came out in May, the-then Punjab education minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had drawn criticism from the opposition and Punjabi netizens for dismissing those figures as fudged. Later2 in June, chief minister Bhagwant Mann also called the NAS “fake”. When the report of PG Index-2020 came out in June 2021, Delhi’s deputy CM and education minister Manish Sisodia had ridiculed Punjab’s number one spot, alleging that it was because Captain Amarinder Singh had “secret friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi”. IP.S
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