Performance Grading Index 2.0 Report Highlights India’s Education Quality

Chandigarh tops the list but no state achieves the highest grade

Performance Grading Index 2.0 Report Highlights India’s Education Quality: The Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2.0 was released by the Union Ministry of Education on June 18, 2025. This report acts like a report card for Indian states and Union Territories, showing how well they’re doing in the education sector. But unlike an exam where someone tops the list, this year, no state reached the highest performance bracket. That speaks volumes about the collective need to do better.

Understanding the grading structure

The PGI uses a 1,000-point scale to measure performance. The factors it considers are practical and important — like how well students learn, whether schools have proper buildings and toilets, how well teachers are trained, and how good the governance is in the education system. The highest grade bracket is from 761 to 1,000, but none of the states managed to reach it.

Chandigarh shines bright

Among all, Chandigarh stood out by scoring 719 points, putting it in the Prachesta-1 category (701–760). This means Chandigarh is doing quite well in terms of learning outcomes and infrastructure when compared to the rest of the country.

The rest of the field

States like Punjab, Delhi, and 8 others fell into the Prachesta-3 grade with scores between 581 and 640. While this shows they’re doing moderately well, there’s still a big gap to bridge. On the other hand, Meghalaya received just 417 points, placing it in the Akanshi-3 bracket — the lowest category. This signals the need for focused improvement.

Challenges for lower-performing states

States like Assam and Telangana scored between 461 and 520, categorised as Akanshi-2. These states are battling serious challenges, particularly in delivering consistent learning experiences, maintaining school infrastructure, and improving student performance.

Access and student progress

One of the PGI’s key focuses is educational access. This includes measuring how many children enroll in school, how many stay until the end of the year, and how many move on to higher classes. In this area, Bihar and Telangana showed promising progress — an encouraging sign for states that often face education-related challenges.

Improving basic infrastructure

School infrastructure was judged by looking at essentials like clean drinking water, functional toilets, libraries, and even internet access. States like Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, and Telangana performed well in this department, showing strong year-on-year improvement.

How scoring works?

The PGI score for each area is based on proportional performance and weightage. For example, if 50% of Grade 5 students are good at Maths, and the full weightage for that indicator is 20 points, then the state gets 10 (i.e., 0.5 × 20). This way, the scoring reflects actual on-ground outcomes rather than inflated data.

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