- National Institute of Open Schooling
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"NIOS" redirects here. For other uses, see Nios (disambiguation).
NIOS 
National Institute of Open SchoolingFormation 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 309Official 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]
Contents
History
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.
International Collaboration
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.
Courses Offered by NIOS
NIOS offer the following courses:
- Open Basic Education Programme, Which includes following three levels courses
- OBE 'A' Level Course—Equivalent to class III
- OBE 'B' Level Course—Equivalent to class V
- OBE 'C' Level Course—Equivalent to class VIII
- Secondary Course—Equivalent to class X
- Senior Secondary Course—Equivalent to class XII
- Vocational Education Courses
- Life Enrichment Programmes
Examinations
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]
Regional Offices of the Board
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 See also
- Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)
- Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC)
- Indian School Certificate (ISC), India
- Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), India
- Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), India
- West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE), India
- Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (महाराष्ट्र राज्य माध्यमिक व उच्च माध्यमिक शिक्षण मंडळ) (MSBSHSE), India
- Boards of Education in India
- Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), India
- Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), India
References
External links
- NIOS official website
- NIOS Help Books/Guide Books—Bukwit.com
Categories:- School qualifications
- Distance education in India
- School qualifications of India
- Educational assessment and evaluation
- High school course levels
- Noida
- Educational organisations in India
- Education stubs
- Open Basic Education Programme, Which includes following three levels courses
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