Construction of Education Index for the Blocks of Paschim Medinipur District: An Appraisal through the Application of Average Correlation Method

Abstract

This article is carrying the objective to assess the role of education as a development indicator for all the 29 blocks of undivided Paschim Medinipur district for a selected period of 2005–06 to 2014–15. This purpose is fulfilled through the construction of Education Index (EI) in which the weights of the underlying indicators are determined by the application of Iterative Average Correlation Method (Mondal, Mookherjee & Pattanayek, 2017; International Journal of Management and Development Studies, 6[10], 28–36). The EI, thus constructed, is observed to have data-driven weights of 35.35% for gross enrolment index (GEI) and 64.65% for adult literacy index (ALI). Moreover, this EI is experiencing high inter-block and high inter-temporal variations for the said period. These variationsare explained by some of the selected factors of educational attainment, namely, Population Growth Rate (PGR), Non-Agricultural Labour Ratio (NAGL), Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Ratio (SCSTR), Poverty Ratio (POVR) and Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) by applying fixed effect model and andom effect the basis of their ortho-partial correlation (Mondal, 2008; Communication in Statistics—Simulation and Computation, 37[4], 713–730) and average correlation values. From the pooled regression results, it appears that the SCSTR is the most important factor with the relative importance of 0.3336 out of 0.7888.