Infra & safety shortcomings to low digital learning score, what Centre's index reveals Bengal schools lack

With regard to infra amenities and physical facilities in poor health, and lackadaisical child safety norms, to unapproved funds idle and intrinsic digital learning shortcomings, schools in 24 West Bengal districts have performed poorly on all but a few parameters employed to measure schooling, a report published by the Union Ministry of Education last Wednesday reported.

2022-23 and 2023-24 Performance Grading Index graded the government and private schools state and district wise in India. 

There were six categories, and they were measured in the schools, i.e., learning outcomes (availability of teacher, access to learning), effective classroom transactions, infrastructure facilities & student entitlements, school safety & protection of child, digital learning and governance process.

The UTs/districts and the states were on a different gradation scale. The districts had a total of 600, and the states had a total of 1,000.

The UTs/states were graded in 10 grades, i.e., Daksh (competent) or grade 1 (91 percent to 100 percent states/UTs), Akanshi-3 (aspirational) or grade 10 (up to 10 percent score for states/UTs). The rest of the grades between them was held by 10 percentage points.

Even at the district level, 10 grades between 1 and 10 were given. Grade 1 (districts having more than 90 percent total marks), or Utkarsh (excellent), was the highest grade, and grade 10 (districts having a high of 10 percent), or Akanshi-3, was the lowest grade.

Composite school achievement in West Bengal—national and district levels—is dismal. National level performance in 2022-23 and 2023-24 was of Akanshi-1, class of 521-580 marks or 21-30 percent.

District level data also indicated that everything is not alright with West Bengal classrooms.

In the infrastructure facilities & school entitlements head alone, for example, 12 of the 24 districts experienced a mid-level decline in scores.

This part is aimed at assessing school facilities and infrastructure such as handrails in ramps, laboratory equipment, libraries, kitchen plots, sports equipment, etc. It tries to determine if the major schools received free uniforms and textbooks within one month of opening dates and the number of higher-grade girls who received special incentives such as bicycles, scholarships, etc.

The Siliguri—a district sub-division of Darjeeling district—is comparable to a district in the report.

There is one where nearly all the districts lagged behind, and that is computer-based learning, i.e., student-computer ratio, percentage of computer-trained teachers, internet accessibility in schools, etc.

The West Bengal districts' all-India rank is 5.5 out of 50 for 2022-23 and 5.6 for 2023-24. The top was by Kolkata for 12 and 13 (out of 50) for 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively, and then Siliguri.

The report further outlines how student safety initiatives fall behind the agenda of most of the state districts like Kolkata, Murshidabad, Hooghly, Malda and Nadia. The average score of 24 districts in this segment was 3.5 (on a scale of 35) for the year 2022-23 and 4.5 for the year 2023-24.

The school child safety & protection is giving topmost priority to protection of students via disaster management readiness by schools, girls' self-defence training, etc.

West Bengal has also lost Centre's Samagra Shiksha for which it has already been sanctioned only for 2022-23 and not 2023-24. It has also left administrative posts vacant in schemes like digitisation of attendance of teachers and students, the report further added. Overall score which districts have registered in governance process category stands at 30.2 (of 84) for 2022-23 and 30.8 for 2023-24.

North 24 Parganas outperforms Kolkata

Not capital city Kolkata but North 24 Parganas was at the top (302 out of 600) of overall perception in 2023-24 among 24 West Bengal districts. North 24 Parganas stood alone among state districts to score Prachesta-1 (trying) or grade 5 (51 percent to 60 percent) ranking.

166 out of 290 was the district's outcome measure score considering such factors as number of children at various grades with a letter, number, new Indian languages, science grade; number of children of grade 1 benefited by at least one year pre-primary education; number of out-of-school children to be re-placed in school; availability and teacher ratio, etc.

It had 34 out of 51 in facilities & student rights at school and only 5 out of 35 in child protection & safety at school, and 7 out of 50 in virtual learning.

The remaining state districts were Prachesta-2 or Prachesta-3 scored for both years.

15 districts were rated Prachesta-2 and 9 districts were rated Prachesta-3 in 2022-23. North 24 Parganas was promoted one rank to Prachesta-1 in 2023-24, Birbhum, Siliguri and Malda were promoted the rank to Prachesta-2, and six others were promoted to Prachesta-3.

There was a humongous gap between top rated district, North 24 Parganas at 302 in 2023-24, and bottom of 216 which also included Uttar Dinajpur.

How districts perform overall

No district in the state got the top two grades of Utkarsh and Uttam-1 (model). One got the grade of Uttam-2 for 2023-24 but no such district got it for 2022-23.

At the national level, West Bengal received Akanshi-1. Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Sikkim were some other states/UTs that fell under this category. Chandigarh received the top mark in India, and Meghalaya received the bottom one.

Centre report follows the West Bengal education department in the wake of the school service commission recruitment scandal. Nearly 26,000 teachers and officials have been dismissed this year following the April Supreme Court order that the 2016 recruitment by the West Bengal School Service Commission was marred and confirmed the Calcutta High Court order cancelling recruitments.

The protest demonstrations remain to be watched by the workers who had protested against discriminatorily dismissal from service due to corruption in the education department.