Delhi tops primary education index; Bihar lags

New Delhi, Mar 19: The national capital ranks first and Bihar stands at the bottom in the Educational Development Index in regard to primary education.

Tamil Nadu comes second to Delhi followed by Kerala, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Maa Fatmi told the Rajya Sabha today, in a written answer.

The Minister said the Index had been prepared to assess the progress of states and Union Territories for achieving the goal of universalisation of primary education.

Punjab, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh are also among the top ten ranking fifth, sixth, and seventh respectively. Karnataka, Mizoram and Sikkim follow them with a ranking of eight, nine and ten respectively.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is being implemented by all States and Union Territories to universalise primary education, he said.

Besides Bihar other states where the Human Educational Index was very low are Arunachal Pradesh, which ranks 34, Jharkhand(33), Assam (31) and Uttar Pradesh(30), he said.

UNI