Punjab Surpasses Kerala to Top NITI Aayog School Education Quality Rankings 2026

Punjab Education Rankings: The NITI Aayog Education Quality Report 2026 released on 10th May 2026 allowed Punjab to overtake Kerala, which has been the leader in the past, in terms of the quality of Indian school education and drastically changed the country's educational history. This is due to the strong “Sikhya Kranti” or Education Revolution policies in Punjab. The state has performed well in terms of academic performance with 82% and 52% of its children reading and numerating in Classes 3 and 9 respectively.

The state's extensive financial commitment in digitization and educational skills has made this historic achievement possible. In fact, more than 80 per cent of smart classrooms and 99.9 per cent public schools have electricity, making Punjab the level to compete with the best private schools in the country. The divide between rural and urban areas has also been reduced by the implementation of Punjab's very successful "Schools of Eminence" project and teacher training in Finland and Singapore. While Kerala has exceptional literacy rates, Punjab is the leader of the country in the field of increasing technology-based learning.

Punjab vs. Kerala: Key Differences

The performance of Punjab in terms of foundational learning and secondary learning is much better than that of Kerala, especially in the areas of mathematics and language skills.