Despite changed parameters, barely 1% government schools get A+ grade in Gujarat's accreditation programme — Gunotsav 2.0

Indian Express

23-05-2025

Despite changed parameters, barely 1% government schools get A+ grade in Gujarat's accreditation programme — Gunotsav 2.0
Barely 1% of government schools — 524 out of 40,298 – were graded in A+ category in Gujarat under the state government's school accreditation programme: Gunotsav 2.0.
Of these 524 schools, 383 are government primary schools and ashram shalas (schools for tribal children, introduced in 2024-25), while 141 are secondary and higher secondary schools.
The figure marks a slight improvement from 2023-24, when 413 schools received A+ grade.
Notably, in the academic year 2023-24, the evaluation framework of accreditation was changed to include the schemes of the state government such as Chief Minister Gyan Setu and Chief Minister Gyan Sadhana Merit Scholarship Yojana.
While the weightage of scholarship schemes such as Gyan Setu and Gyan Sadhana has increased from 17% to 30%, the share of other parameters, including teaching and learning, co-curricular activities, school management, etc, has been reduced to less than half for the purpose of accreditation.
On the reason behind the changed parameters, Prakash Trivedi, director of Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training (GCERT), told The Indian Express, 'Since the entrance exam (the Common Entrance Test [CET]) for these two schemes is conducted by the State Examination Board (SEB), which is kind of a third-party evaluation, the decision was taken to include this and give it a significant weightage.'
While acknowledging that there has not been a drastic change in the number of A+ schools, Trivedi stressed, 'However, the number of schools under the A grade has risen to more than double.'
From 2,558 in 2023-24, the number of A grade schools has jumped to 5,864 this year. Under the 30% weightage criteria, the number of forms filled by a school for CET, the number of students who cleared it, and those who featured in the merit list are taken into account.
While the Chief Minister Gyan Setu Merit Scholarship Scheme is for students from Class VI to XII, the Chief Minister Gyan Sadhana Merit Scholarship scheme is for Classes IX to XII. The schemes apply to students of both government and private schools.
For assessment of government schools and its students, Gunotsav was launched by the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi in 2009 in Gujarat. This was redesigned as Gunotsav 2.0 by the education department in 2019-20.
So far, a total of four rounds of accreditation of government primary schools and two rounds of accreditation of government and aided secondary and higher secondary schools in the state have been completed. The accreditation report cards have been made available online to the schools under Gunotsav 2.0.
External evaluation of all schools was conducted through school inspectors in 2023-24. Further, as per the recommendations of the National Education Policy 2020, arrangements are being made to ensure that the results can be viewed by any person online.