National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS)

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) is an autonomous Institution under MHRD established in 1989. NIOS offers Secondary (10th), Sr.Secondary (12th) and Vocational courses through open and distance learning(ODL) mode. It also offers Open Basic Education and Elementary Teacher Education Programme. NIOS operates through a network of five Departments, 22 Regional Centres and more than 6500 and Accredited Institutions in India and abroad. It has a current cumulative enrolment of about 2.82 million learners during the last five years with an annual enrolment of about 550 thousand learners which makes it the largest open schooling system in the world. The openness and flexibility in education is key to educational programs of NIOS. There is no upper age for admission in NIOS. Freedom of choice of subjects, self-learning study materials, transfer of credits and flexible examination system with ICT based On-Demand Examination (ODES) System are some of the learner-centric facilities being provided by NIOS. NIOS offers 42 Courses on SWAYAM Platform. NIOS successfully completed the training of more than 13 lakhs untrained in-service elementary teachers using SWAYAM platform.