National Open School (earlier known as National Institute of Open Schooling) on Wednesday celebrated its 33rd Foundation Day.
Hailing the achievements of NOS on this occasion, Union Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar appreciated the various programmes and schemes of NIOS and said that it is lighting the lamp of knowledge all over the world.
Talking about the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Dr. Sarkar mentioned that today’s children will be young people in the age group of 30-40 years on the completion of 100 years of independence and will be responsible for building our nation.
What is National Open School?
National Open School is as an autonomous institute under Ministry of Education (MOE), Government of India.
It was established in 1989 as National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) under the National Policy on Education 1986.
The vision of NOS is to provide sustainable inclusive learning with universal and flexible access to quality school education and skill development.
NOS is one of the two National Boards of Education under the Ministry of Education, which provides school education through Open and Distance Learning (ODL) for secondary, senior secondary and vocational education.
Roles and Responsibilities of NOS
Ministry of Education, has entrusted NOS with several responsibilities such as developing inclusive education resources, expanding the open and distance education system in states and UTs, translating all courses into more languages as required, creation of Indian Knowledge Tradition based courses and propagating Indian culture by translating them into major foreign languages.
NOS programs aims at enrolling 10 crore adults under ‘Basic Literacy Assessment’, training of in-service teachers, Gender Green Project and training in Yoga.
Achievements of National Open School
Talking about achievements of NOS on its 33rd foundation day, Dr. Subhash Sarkar said that Indian Sign Language as subject at the secondary level has been acknowledged at national and international platforms. He described the launch of e-library called ‘DEEP’ by NOS as a big step forward.
Prof. Saroj Sharma spoke about the journey of 33 years of NIOS and highlighted the special achievements.
She elaborated on the role of NIOS in the field of education, efforts being made by NIOS for successful implementation of New Education Policy, Virtual Open School, Digital Library (DEEP), NEPIA Project, MoU with Ministry of Defence for Agniveer Project, setting up of Mukta Kaushal Kendras and subjects offered under Indian knowledge Tradition.
It was also conveyed by her that a curriculum called ‘Aarambhika’ is being developed by NIOS for catering the Indian Diaspora.
