School Education Quality Index
Sustainable Development Goals: 4
- SDG 4 - Quality Education
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.
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. These indicators are categorized as follows:
Category 1: Outcomes
Domain 1: Learning Outcomes
Domain 2: Access Outcomes
Domain 3: Infrastructure & Facilities for Outcomes
Domain 4: Equity Outcomes
Category 2: Governance Processes Aiding Outcomes
Schooling should result in tangible learning outcomes. 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.
SEQI focuses on indicators that drive improvements in the quality of education rather than on inputs or specific processes. The index thus seeks to institutionalise a focus on improving education outcomes with respect to learning, access, equity and governance in India.
To facilitate like-to-like comparisons, States and UTs have been grouped as Large States, Small States and UTs. 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.
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.
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.
