Bhubaneswar: In a major achievement in providing quality school education, Odisha has registered a significant improvement, says Niti Aayog report titled School Education Quality Index (SEQI) which is released today.
While Odisha was placed at 13th rank in base year 2015-16, it moved up to 7th position in the reference year 2016-17, the report said.
Odisha and four other states– Haryana, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat– registered high rates of improvement in their overall performance score between 2015-16 and 2016-17.
Odisha is the fourth best state in terms of improvement. The percentage figure increased from 47.8 in 2015-16 to 60.2 in 2016-17 with a 12.4 percent improvement, the report added.
NITI Aayog SEQI: NITI Aayog – the primary think-tank of Government of India, has released the School Education Quality Index (SEQI).
SEQI is a system designed by NITI Aayog to quantify and measure the performance of states and union territories in the field of school education.
As per the latest SEQI Report, Kerala has emerged at the top with highest incremental performance in the test period, while all other states have shown positive growth in terms of key indicators that determine the quality of school education in the country.
Why SEQI?
As discussed above, SEQI or the School Education Quality Index is a platform through which NITI Aayog quantifies the performance of schools in a particular state or UT and benchmarks them against other states.
The index helps government understand the challenges that school education sector faces in different states and UTs while also evaluating their strengths that can help solve problems in other states with similar problems.
Based on SEQI, the government is advised to take the necessary corrective measures and make policy interventions that help states overcome these challenges. Format of SEQI To help balance the odds, NITI Aayog uses a unique tabulation format under which states and UTs are classified into three key categories i.e. 1. Big States 2. Small States 3. Union Territories
18 Big States Improve their Standing
As per the SEQI Report published by NITI Aayog, a total of 18 out of 20 large states have improved their standings in the report.
Among the big states, Kerala has registered highest incremental performance. Among the big states (Haryana, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat) showed high rates of improvement, with increases of 18.5, 16.8, 13.7, 12.4 and 10.6 percentage points respectively.
The overall performance has declined in Karnataka and Uttarakhand. 5 Small States Register Growth Among the small states, the overall performance on SEQI has increased for a total of 5 states i.e. Tripura, Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland. On the other hand, Mizoram, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh have registered negative growth in their rank and overall performance.