Schooling For All Sans Artificial Barriers

C.B. Sharma, Chairman of the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), speaks to Meghaa Aggarwal on the challenges and opportunities in open schooling

Q. NIOS was originally set up to address the dearth of regular schools in the country. How has its role evolved with the growth of schooling infrastructure?

A. Attending regular schools is the right process. For overall development of a child, it is important that every child goes to a school and grows up in the company of a peer group. Unfortunately, the way schools have developed, regular schooling is not able to meet the needs of a large number of students. On the other hand, the in-built capacity and flexibility of NIOS have allowed us to accommodate a large number of people.

Despite a provision that requires all schools to have special educators, many of them are either not able to or are unwilling to meet the needs of differently-abled students. So, a large number of differently-abled students complete schooling through NIOS. In the last two years, the NIOS has developed study material for five subjects in sign language for hearing-impaired children. We have also relaxed our norms for autistic children who face extreme hardships in pursuing education through normal schooling.

We also cater to ‘gifted’ students who are preparing for various competitive exams and do not want to spend time going to regular school, or those who excel in non-academic pursuits such as sports, acting etc. Many IIT toppers, sports personalities and film stars have completed their schooling through NIOS. Apart from this, senior citizens, jail inmates, army personnel – practically anyone who has not been able to complete regular schooling for their own reasons – can do this through NIOS.