Chairman's Message
The National institute of Open Schooling (NIOS)
has entered into its adulthood and completed two decades of its
existence in the field of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the
school education sector. This journey of the Institute has been
quite successful. With about 2.71 million students on its roll,
NIOS is credited to be the largest open school in the world with
significant popularity in the Commonwealth countries and in certain
other developing and developed countries. NIOS has been offering
Secondary and Senior Secondary and Vocational Education &
training (VET) courses through its study centers and Open Basic
Education Programme through Accredited Agencies.
NIOS not only offers a wide spectrum of courses of study up to
the pre-degree level for all categories of learners, but also works
as a nodal institute for carrying forward the open school movement
in the country in order to achieve the objective of developing an
inclusive learning society. This has been possible due to
dedication and unstinting support from all faculty and staff of the
institute and other stakeholders. However, there are some tasks and
issues that need quick intervention and concerted attention as
indicated below :
- The success of ODL system largely depends on satisfaction of
its learners, not only in terms of what is the quality of academic
support they receive but also up to what extent they are empowered
during the learning process. NIOS needs to work in this direction
by consolidating and strengthening its academic support
system.
- The National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) has posed several
challenges of education before all of us, particularly in the
school education sector; not only what is to be learnt but also to
ensure the effectiveness of the process of learning. It emphasizes
giving more freedom and autonomy to the learner. Hence, there is a
need to revisit the curriculum of NIOS for making learning more and
more learner oriented.
- NIOS needs to focus more on those disadvantaged groups of the
society, who have been discriminated against getting education for
long due to varied socio-economic reasons. We are in the process of
developing workable and implementable action plans with due
priority for reaching the unreached and uplifting them in the
social structure by providing relevant and need based quality
education. Besides SCs, STs, Girls and differently abled, NIOS has
visualized a programme of education of minorities. The programme
for education of minorities has already been started and it is in
the process of expansion.
- In recent years, the modern technologies have been playing
varied roles. Among other things, the Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) is being used widely by NIOS in the school
education arena, particularly at the secondary and senior secondary
levels. A comprehensive vision and perspective plan is being
developed to harness the benefits of ICT for facilitating
teaching-learning and other ODL endeavours. We are taking several
steps for empowering the distance learners through our own efforts
and by using the public-private partnership (PPP) mode of
cooperation and collaboration. Some of the significant ICT based
programmes that need focused attentions are:
- On-line admission
- On-Demand Examination System (ODES)
- Interactive Voice Response system (IVRS)
- 24x7 admission facility.
- Capacity building of functionaries is an integral part of the
ODL system. It is all the more important in the school education
sector keeping in view the fact that a large number of personnel
are associated with the system for planning, implementation and
monitoring of educational programmes. NIOS has to develop a
comprehensive system to ensure that the capacity building
activities becomes an integral component at all levels including
the functionaries working under the State Open Schools (SOSs). We
have to make the open schooling system a vibrant agent to meet this
challenge of capacity building of ODL functionaries not only at the
national level; but also at the international level with support
from international agencies like the Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
and UNESCO.
- In any instructional process, including ODL, research is an
integral component not only to strengthen the system internally but
also to contribute significantly to meet the national and societal
goals. This area needs to be given significant attention for
strengthening the instructional process as well as for making
education relevant and need based to the learners. These efforts
will prove useful in placing the open schooling programme on a
sound pedestal.
- NIOS is making concerted efforts for development of ODL system,
particularly at the school level, by establishing a network of open
schools to further strengthen the open schooling movement in
country with the support from the Government of India and the State
Governments. As envisaged in the XI Plan by the Planning
Commission, NIOS, therefore, has to take a lead role in setting up
of the State Open Schools in all the states.
- There is a need to bring a happy balance between expectations
from the institution and the actual contribution made by it to the
society. Our endeavor would be to make the student a good human
being and a useful member of the society. In this context,
providing suitable vocational education and training (VET) to
specific target groups who want to enter the world of work is our
priority agenda to be implemented mainly through PPP mode. Societal
expectations do not have any limits; however one must strive to
make concerted efforts to meet these expectations as far as
possible. The ODL system, like that of NIOS, therefore, has to work
within the parameters of expectations and contributing
substantially to the nation's endeavours for universalisation of
school education. Let us join hands for providing appropriate
responses to the challenges of education.