New Delhi: In a quiet but significant development, the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) 2023-24 has revealed a sharp contrast in the quality of school education across India’s 788 districts, exposing both pockets of remarkable progress and areas of persistent neglect. The Ministry of Education’s annual assessment, released on June 18, grades districts out of 600 points using 73 indicators across domains such as access, infrastructure, equity, learning outcomes, and teacher education.
The 2023-24 data highlights that “maximum districts across all states and Union Territories have shown improvement as compared to 2022-23,” according to the report. This positive trend indicates that targeted policies and the decentralisation of school governance may be bearing fruit—especially in districts previously categorised under the Aspirational Districts Programme.
However, the PGI-D framework, which classifies district scores into 10 performance grades, also lays bare wide disparities. While the top 100 districts have steadily moved into higher performance bands, the bottom 100 continue to lag significantly, with some recording a drop in critical domains such as equity and governance.
The PGI-D, as the Ministry describes, aims to function as a “simple tool to assist states and districts in evidence-based decision-making.” It uses granular indicators aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4) to push a bottom-up reform strategy.
A closer look at the rankings shows that progress is uneven. States like Odisha have shown significant score improvements, while Lakshadweep has registered the maximum decline in the equity domain, reflecting issues in inclusive education outreach.