Assam has emerged as one of the strongest performers in school education in the Northeast, while Meghalaya ranked last in the country, according to the Union Education Ministry’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2.0 report for 2024-25.
Assam scored 593.6 out of 1,000 and secured a Prachesta-3 grade, registering one of the sharpest improvements nationally by gaining more than 82 points from its 2023-24 score of 511.5.
In contrast, Meghalaya scored 448, making it the weakest-performing state in the Northeast and the lowest-ranked state in the country. It was the only state placed in the Akanshi-3 band, the lowest category in the index.
The report highlighted stark regional disparities in governance, infrastructure, teacher training and learning outcomes despite improvements in access and equity indicators across most northeastern states.
Assam performed strongly in governance, securing an Uttam-3 grade and placing alongside national leaders such as Maharashtra, Chandigarh and Odisha. Meghalaya, however, scored only 40.5 out of 130 in the governance category.
In learning outcomes — considered the most critical metric with the highest weightage of 240 points — Assam scored 79.4, while Meghalaya managed only 47.2, the lowest among northeastern states.
Meghalaya also recorded weak scores in infrastructure and teacher training, securing 62.1 out of 190 and 46.7 out of 100 respectively. Though the state improved from its previous score of 417.9, the gain of around 30 points was the smallest in the region.
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The report noted that Meghalaya’s relatively stable equity score of 208.7 out of 260 reflected uniformly low learning levels across student groups rather than strong performance by any particular category.
Mizoram, despite being the Northeast’s only fully literate state with literacy above 91 per cent, scored 507.9 and remained in the Akanshi-2 band alongside Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir.
The report observed that high literacy did not automatically translate into stronger school system performance in areas such as governance, foundational learning and infrastructure.
Sikkim emerged as the second-best performer in the Northeast with 603.3 points, climbing to the Prachesta-3 grade and recording the region’s highest infrastructure score at 112.3.
Arunachal Pradesh posted one of the sharpest improvements, gaining more than 65 points to reach 527 and moving up a full grade band. Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland also improved by one grade each.
Across the region, the Access domain — which measures enrolment, retention and out-of-school children — showed encouraging trends, while Equity scores remained relatively stable.
However, the report said the Northeast continued to lag behind national leaders in learning outcomes and governance. Punjab topped the country in learning outcomes with a score of 150.4, while Chandigarh led the overall rankings with 739.1 points.
The ministry said the national inter-state performance gap had narrowed from 51 per cent in 2017-18 to 39.4 per cent in 2024-25 due to evidence-based monitoring and policy interventions.
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