OdishaPlus Bureau
Odisha catapults to 7th position by NITI Aayog in its report on School Education Quality Index (SEQI) in 2016-17 among big states. At 13th position among states in the base year 2015-16, the state made a gain of 6 points to reach at 7th for the reference year 2016-17. The State gained an overall 12.4 percentage from 47.8 percent (13th Position) to reach at 60.2 percent (imposition). SEQI serves as a useful tool to assess the success of the country’s school education system.
Odisha has become the fourth Best State among 18 large states of the country which have shown significant improvement in SEQI in 2016-17. While Kerala emerged topper in QEQI ranking, the overall performance of Karnataka and Uttarakhand declined.
“The Objective of the is to bring an outcome focus to the education policy by providing States and UTs with a platform to identify their strengths and weaknesses and undertake requisite course corrections and policy interventions,” said CEO NITI Aayog Amitav Kant.
Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy and School & Mass education Secretary Chitra Arumugam apprised the Chief Minister on this significant achievement. Appreciating the efforts of the School & Mass Education Department, Patnaik advised the department to keep up the good work and to endeavour for getting into top three.
It may be mentioned here that Odisha gained 18.5 percent to rise from 43.4 percent to reach at 61.9 percent in the category of Governance Processes Aiding Outcomes. The Governance Process Aiding Outcomes consider factors covering student-teacher attendance, administrative adequacy, training, accountability, and transparency. The other outcomes that NITI Aayog considers are Learning Outcomes, Access Outcomes, Infrastructure & Facilities, and Equity outcomes. The state has also performed well in these factors.