Context
• Chandigarh has been adjudged the best performer in school education for the academic year 2023-24, while Meghalaya appears in the lowest rung of the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2.0 report released by the Union Education Ministry on Wednesday.
• The States are graded on a wide range of indicators, including learning outcomes and quality, access, infrastructure, equity, governance processes, and teacher education and training, for a total of 1,000 points.
• None of the States feature in the top scoring range of 761-1,000, which suggests that there is huge scope for improvement, Ministry officials said.
• The report shows that 24 States and Union Territories improved their scores in 2023-24 from the previous year’s, while the remaining 12 States and Union Territories saw declining scores
• Chandigarh achieved a score of 719, and is the sole State to reach Grade Prachesta-1, for scores between 701 to 760.
Performance Grading Index (PGI)
• The annual Performance Grading Index (PGI) released by the Union government ranks the performance of States and Union Territories in school education
• The Performance Grading Index (PGI) is a tool to provide insights on the status of school education in States and UTs including key levers that drive their performance and critical areas for improvement.
• The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) under Ministry of Education has designed the PGI to catalyse transformational change in the field of school education.
IAS-2026 - OPTIONAL / GEOGRAPHY / PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION / SOCIOLOGY / ANTHROPOLOGY / ORIENTATION ON 03 & 04-10-2025 
