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Tamil Nadu: PGI demotion shock

EducationWorld January 2023 | Education News Magazine
-Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) Tamil pride suffered a huge blow in the closing months of last year when the Union ministry of education’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2020-21, released on No­vember 3, 2022, demoted the state’s primary-secondary school system to Level III. According to the ministry’s depart­ment of school education and literacy website, PGI, introduced in 2017-18, “measures the performance of states/ UTs on a uniform scale to catalyse the (sic) transformational change in the field of school education”. However to “eliminate the phenomenon of one (state) improving only at the cost of others, thereby casting a stigma of under-performance on the latter,” the index clusters states/UTs (Union territories) into grades/levels I-X with states with best performing school systems grouped in Grade I and worst in Grade X. In PGI 2020-21, no state or UT school system has been awarded Level I status. Seven states/UTs — Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Chandigarh — have been awarded Level II Status (scores 901-950). Tamil Nadu, which was routinely featured in Level II for the past three years, is relegated to Level III (score: 851-900). The index assesses the schooling systems of states across 70 indicators (parameters) under two main heads: outcome, and governance and man­agement. Under these main categories states’ school systems are evaluated for learning outcomes, access, infra­structure & facilities and governance processes. In Tamil Nadu (pop. 76.4 million), a state which prides itself on its intel­lectual tradition and prowess, the de­motion of its school system from Level II to Level III where it is grouped to­gether with the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhat­tisgarh and Jammu & Kashmir, has come as a shock. Chennai-based educationist Dr. S. Somasundaram ascribes this demotion to children’s learning loss due to the closure of state schools for 82 weeks during the Covid-19 pandemic. “There was no classroom teaching for them for one-and-a-half years starting from March 2020. The great majority of children — es­pecially in government schools — have been learning only from lessons telecast on Kalvi TV, the state-run education channel. Learning outcomes from such one-way lectures are bound to plunge to the lowest level,” says Somasundaram. Failure of the state government to promote listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW) pedagogy in pri­mary education is also a contributory factor. “Government schools are still focused on rote learning rather than developing creative thinking capabili­ties. Pratham’s Annual Status of Edu­cation Report (ASER) 2021 survey in­dicates that a large percentage of class VIII students can’t do basic maths taught in class III. If students have a good foundational education, they will do well in high school and higher edu­cation,” adds Somasundaram. However, government spokesper­sons highlight that the state’s annual outlay for education has risen from Rs.29,000 crore in 2019-20 to Rs.37,000 crore in 2020-21 and blame government school leaders and teach­ers for Tamil Nadu’s demotion in PGI 2020-21. K.P.O. Suresh, former presi­dent of the Tamil Nadu Postgraduate Teachers Association (TNPGTA), ad­mits that the outlay for education has been increased, but according to
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