NITI Aayog on Monday released the School Education Quality Index (SEQI) which evaluates states and union territories' performance in the school education. Kerala secured the top spot with 76.6 per cent while Uttar Pradesh performed worst for 2016-17.Haryana, Assam and Uttar Pradesh showed the most improvement in their performance in 2016-17, in comparison to the base year of 2015-16. The SEQI assesses states on the basis of learning, access and equity outcomes, infrastructure and facilities.
The index aims to bring an 'outcomes' focus on the education policy by providing states and UTs with a platform to identify their strengths and weaknesses and undertake requisite course corrections or policy interventions.
Kerala has emerged on top among 20 large states in terms of quality of school education, followed by Rajasthan and Karnataka, while the most-populous Uttar Pradesh was ranked at the bottom position during 2016-17.
Five small states have shown an improvement in their overall performance score between 2015-16 and 2016-17, with the average improvement being around nine percentage points.
All seven UTs have shown an improvement in their overall performance scores.
"With this index, the government identifies the strength and weakness in school education and takes required correction measures like policy interventions to rectify them," a press release said. It further said: "To ensure the system is geared towards learning, SEQI assigns almost half its weight to learning outcomes. This sends a strong signal across the nation to ensure the focus remains centred on learning outcomes."
The first edition of SEQI was released by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar in the presence in presence of representatives from the World Bank here on Monday.
( With inputs from ANI )