Government think tank Niti Aayog has organised the first regional workshop on School Education Quality Index (SEQI) to improve the learning outcomes among school children, the Aayog said today. The workshops on SEQI, organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), saw striking evidence on factors that determine the quality of school education being presented by participants from the northern region. The objective was to sensitise and support states/ UTs in improving learning outcomes among school children across India, Niti Aayog said.

The SEQI is a composite index that will report annual improvements of states on key domains of education quality, conceptualised and designed by Niti Aayog and the HRD Ministry.

Its larger vision is to shift the focus of states from inputs towards outcomes, provide objective benchmarks for continuous annual improvements, encourage state-led innovations to improve quality and facilitate sharing of best practices, Niti Aayog said.

In order to precisely report the quality of education imparted across India, SEQI is divided into two categories — Outcomes, and Governance & Management. These are further divided into three domains of Outcomes (Learning, Access and Equity) and two domains of Governance & Management (Governance Processes and Structural Reforms).

Currently, the index has 34 indicators and 1,000 points, with the highest weightage given to learning outcomes (600 out of 1,000 points), it added.

Senior education functionaries from Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and Chandigarh took part in the deliberations.

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The workshop was also attended by representatives from NUEPA, NCERT, NCTE and other autonomous institutions. Over the coming weeks, Niti Aayog will hold these workshops for all States in different centers across India, the Aayog said.

[Source:-The Indian express]