Why in News?

• The Government think tank, NITI Aayog, has released the School Education Quality Index (SEQI) which evaluates the performance of states and union territories in the school education sector.

About the Index:

• The School Education Quality Index (SEQI) was developed to evaluate the performance of States and Union Territories (UTs) in the school education sector.
• The index aims to bring an outcomes focus to education policy by providing States and UTs with a platform to identify their strengths and weaknesses and undertake requisite course corrections or policy interventions.In line with NITI Aayog’s mandate to foster the spirit of competitive and cooperative federalism, the index strives to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and best practices across States and UTs.

Aim and Purpose:

• SEQI aims to drive policy reforms that will improve the quality of school education. The index seeks to institutionalise a focus on enhancing education outcomes by driving improvements in learning levels, access, equity, infrastructure and governance processes.
• The index recognises that school education is a subject on the Concurrent List and that State-level leadership is crucial for improving outcomes in a cost-effective manner.
• The index will serve as a regular and transparent review of the status of school education quality across the States and UTs.Developed through a collaborative process including key stakeholders such as MHRD, the World Bank and sector experts, the index consists of 30 critical indicators that assess the delivery of quality education.

Index categories and Domains:

• SEQI is based on a set of indicators that measure the overall effectiveness, quality and efficiency of the Indian school education system.The index encourages States/UTs to improve their scores by showing progress across these aspects.

Summary of Index Categories and Domains:

Category	Domain	Number of Indicators	Total Weight
1.   Outcomes	1.1 Learning Outcomes	3	360
	1.2 Access Outcomes	3	100
	1.3 Infrastructure & Facilities for Outcomes	3	25
	1.4 Equity Outcomes	7	200
2.     Governance Process Aiding Process	Covering student and teacher attendance, teacher availability, administrative adequacy, training, accountability and transparency.	14	280
Total		30	965

• To Facilitate like-to-like comparisons, States and UTs have been grouped as Large States, Small States and Union Territories.
• Within each of these groups, the indicator values have been appropriately scaled, normalized and weighted to generate an overall performance score and ranking for each State and UT.States and UTs are ranked on their overall performance in the reference year 2016-17, as well as on the change in their performance between the reference year and base year (2015-16).
• The rankings present incredible insights on the status of school education across States/UTs and their relative progress over time.

Key Highlights of the Report:

• The list has been categorized into three parts – Large States, Small Sates and Union Territories.Top 3 states are Kerala, Rajasthan and Karnataka. And, top 3 bottom states are Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh.
• The smaller states which have been ranked separately include eight states – Manipur, Tripura, Goa, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.
• Uttar Pradesh is one of the largest states in the country but its performance in the field of education is unfortunate.

States / UTs	Best 3 States
Large States	1.      Kerala
	2.    Rajasthan
	3.    Karnataka
Small States	1.      Manipur
	2.    Tripura
	3.    Goa
Union Territories	1.      Chandigarh
	2.    Dadra and Nagar Haveli
	3.    Delhi

Names of States with Rankings:

• Kerala (1), Rajasthan (2), Karnataka(3), Andhra Pradesh (4), Gujarat (5), Assam (6), Maharashtra (7), Tamil Nadu (8), Himachal Pradesh (9), Uttarakhand (10), Haryana (11), Orissa (12), Chhattisgarh (13), Telangana (14), Madhya Pradesh (15), Jharkhand (16), Bihar (17), Punjab (18), Jammu Kashmir (19) and Uttar Pradesh (20).