NIOS

India is a country with one of the largest illiterate population and youth who has not completed their basic education. Youth who dropped out of school or who have been unable to complete their education often look for a second chance to complete their formal education for better opportunities and secure jobs or to gain more skills to elevate their level. VIDYA seeks to maximize the potential in lesser privileged youth by providing those avenues to continue and complete their education through Open School Program and open a door towards better future.

Open School Program

The Open School Program (NIOS) is targeted at beneficiaries of age group 15 – 50 years. It provides academic coaching & assistance for NIOS curriculum and life & soft skills. 

These include employability skills as well as career guidance and interview preparatory skills. NIOS reaches out to marginalized groups who may have been unable to attend school earlier, due to physical or social inaccessibility, by offering them an alternative channel through open and distance learning (ODL) mode of education.

Open School Program started in 2006 at IIT Bombay Campus. It started with assisting drop out students and then started including people from organizations such as Home guard securities, Municipal hospital staff to complete their 10th & 12th for promotion and further education. Later, it also became an alternative to state board education. More than 1600 students have passed their 10th and 12th through Open School Program (NIOS Board). Every student has been able to get a job or continued their education later on.

Objectives:

• Enabling the drop-out youth or those who have not been able to continue their education to complete their 10th and 12th through NIOS by imparting academic assistance.
• Introducing the Open Basic Education (OBE) programme to adult neo-literates who are not able to take advantage of the formal system of schooling.
• Increasing social awareness and responsibility in students to empower them to be agents of change in their communities regarding issues such as environment, gender, caste, etc.

Sub – courses:

Secondary (10th) and Senior Secondary Courses (12th)

NIOS provides education up to pre-degree level to those who for one reason or the other could not or did not make use of the formal education system. NIOS offers the following courses to meet the needs and requirements of such group of learners.

The Secondary level subjects are available in 9 mediums, viz., Hindi, English, Urdu, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil and Odia. At Secondary level 18 language subjects and 17 non-language subjects are offered. VIDYA caters to three mediums at Secondary level.

The Senior Secondary level subjects are available in 6 mediums, viz., Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, and Odia. At Senior Secondary level l2 language subjects and 28 non-language subjects are offered. VIDYA caters to two mediums at Senior Secondary level.

Open Basic Education:

This is an alternative educational programme, equivalent to the elementary education programme of the formal education system providing elementary education at three levels viz…A, B and C which are equivalent to grade III, V and VIII respectively. 

The target groups identified for OBE programme are:

• Children (6-14 years) – School dropouts and left-outs from SSA; out-of-school children; children, in particular girls, of marginalized groups and children with special needs.
• Adolescents and Adults (Above 14 years) – Dropouts; neo-liberates; the adults, in particular women, of marginalized groups and first generation learners and qualified candidates of Basic Education Literacy Assessment of NLMA.

At all the three levels of Open Basic Education programme, NIOS has developed Self Learning Material in 14 Subjects in Hindi and English mediums. To familiarize with UT and achieve the vision of Digital India, a subject on Basic Computer Skills has been introduced as a Pre-Vocational Subject.

About the beneficiaries:

In the urban slum communities of Powai, there are many girls and women who are forbidden to travel out of their homes. Some males haven’t been to complete their formal education due to family responsibilities and other personal issues. With the NIOS program in the communities, they have a ray of hope to finish their studies and accomplish something in their lives. 

• The Youth belonging to the age group of 15 to 50 years participate in VIDYA’s Open school coaching annually. These youths are first-generation learners in most cases.
• Due to a wide range of age group, almost 60% of NIOS youth are already working for their livelihood when they join NIOS. After completion of NIOS, they get eligible for promotion in their jobs or get better jobs through VIDYA.
• The remaining 40% are a mixture of homemakers and young students. Young Students focuses on completing their 12th so that they can continue higher education. Homemakers want to complete their education to support their husband in their business or to assist their children in education. VIDYA also helps these students to get part-time jobs.