| NIOS | |
|---|---|
National Institute of Open Schooling |
|
| Formation | November 3, 1989 |
| Type | Governmental Board of School Education |
| Headquarters | Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Location |
N I O S A-24/25, Institutional Area,Sector - 62, NOIDA Distt. Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh - 201 309 |
| Official languages | Hindi & English |
| Website | www.nios.ac.in |
The National Institute of Open Schooling (often abbreviated as NIOS, NOS or National Open School), is the Board of Education for open schools in India. It was established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India in 1989[1] to provide education inexpensively to remote areas. The NIOS is a national board that administers examinations for Secondary and Senior Secondary examinations of open schools similar to the CBSE and the CISCE.
It had a cumulative enrollment of about 1.5 million students from 2004–2009 at Secondary and Senior Secondary levels and enrolls about 350,000 students annually which makes it the largest open schooling system in the world.[2]
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The Jomtien World Conference on Education for All in 1990, and the E-9 Summit resolution of 1993 called for a massive mobilization of efforts to achieve universal elementary education for all, and subsequently secondary education for all. Simultaneous efforts have been contemplated to provide educational and training access to the disadvantaged and the differently abled, and link education/schooling to social and community development. Open schooling and basic education at a distance have got established, in the last two decades, as strong systemic intervention mechanisms to cater to the quality educational needs of millions of deprived people, with very low cost. Massive developments in information and communications technology have opened up wider possibilities of convergence of methods, media, resources and technologies to wider access and equity in educational provision. The National Policy on Education (NPE 1986) of the Government of India underlines that the future of educational delivery belongs to open and distance learning. Many of the world governments have committed to ODL and open schooling for long-term educational expansion.
With massive expansion of open schooling and open basic education in the world, a strong need has been felt to continuously orient, train and upgrade a variety of functionaries involved in these areas. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India and the National Institute of Open Schooling, India have, in collaboration with and or the support from the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, have established an International Center for Training in Open Schooling (ICTOS) at NOS to address to the training needs of the functionaries involved in open schooling and open basic education. The certificate and diploma programmes mentioned below are part of this effort of the ICTOS.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and UNESCO are among the main collaborating institutions helping in promotion of Open Schooling in India and several other developing countries.[3] NIOS has been interacting with several developing countries in their endeavors for promotion of open schooling and capacity building besides organizing advocacy programmes which has led to setting up of an International Center for Training in Open Schooling (ICTOS). The ICTOS offers Certificate, Advanced Certificate, and Diploma courses in open schooling.
The Open Schooling Association of the Commonwealth (OSAC), established with financial assistance from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), and having its Secretariat at NIOS New Delhi, functions as a liaisoning agency for information dissemination, coordination and mutual consultation among member countries. The mandate for OSAC is to organize human resource development programmes for functionaries of Open Schools, promote research and development activities and take steps to ensure quality of standards. Through periodic meetings, the OSAC provides forum for discussion on issues of mutual interest and concerns.[4]
To provide a forum across the world for scholarly discussions on concerns and issues in Open Learning/Open Schooling and for disseminating research, theory and practice, including inter-disciplinary studies, the half yearly OSAC.
NIOS offer the following courses:
The public examinations are held twice a year in the months of April-May and October-November on dates fixed by the NIOS. However, one is also eligible to appear through On Demand Examination at Secondary Level and Senior Secondary level in those subjects only in which a candidate have admission in NIOS.[5]
In order to systematise the interaction between the NIOS and the State Open Schools and other agencies, it was considered appropriate to establish a forum under the NIOS in the form of a Consortium. The Board has regional Offices in Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Bhopal, Allahabad, Patna and Dehradun. Their jurisdictions are:
| Regional Offices | Jurisdiction/States Covered |
|---|---|
| Delhi I | East Delhi, North Delhi, North East Delhi, North West Delhi, Jhajjar, Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad |
| Delhi II | South Delhi, West Delhi, South West Delhi, Central Delhi, New Delhi, Gurgaon and Faridabad |
| Hyderabad | Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka |
| Pune | Maharashtra and Goa, Daman and Diu |
| Chandigarh | Haryana (excluding Faridabad, Gurgaon and Jhajjar), Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh |
| Kolkata | Sikkim, West Bengal and Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Subcentre Bhubaneswar |
| Bhubaneswar | Orissa |
| Kochi | Tamilnadu, Kerala and Pondicherry |
| Patna | Bihar and Jharkhand |
| Jaipur | Rajasthan and Gujarat |
| Bhopal | Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh |
| Allahabad | UttarPradesh and sub Centre Dehradun |
| Sub Regional Centre - Dehradun | Uttrakhand, Meerut, Bagpat, Saharanpur, Muzzafarnagar, Moradabad and J.P. Nagar (Amroha), distt. of UP |