JOIN USOpen schooling to get a boost
The Centre plans to strengthen the open schooling system in the country in the twelfth Five Year Plan, seeking to provide opportunities for continuing education to people especially from disadvantaged sections, who drop out from conventional schools due to ‘socio-economic reasons.’
While the a new scheme with an outlay of Rs 210 crore is proposed to set up more open schools across the country, another scheme is being worked out to strengthen and upgrade the National Institute of Open Schooling, set up in 1989 as an autonomous body to supplement and complement the formal system, according to sources in the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry.
A total of 16 states including Karnataka, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Assam have so far notified the setting up of the state open schools (SoS).
“While steps will be taken to make them effectively functional during twelfth Plan period, efforts will also be made to open state open schools in Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand,” sources said, referring to the HRD ministry’s aim for the Plan.
A working group set up on secondary and vocational education for the twelfth Plan has projected a budget outlay of Rs 210 crore towards strengthening of exiting state open schools and setting up of similar schools in other 13 states, sources added.
The ministry recognises the need for developing special programmes to bring the out-of-school children, especially girls and children from disadvantaged sections, to the secondary and senior secondary education system.
“Despite massive expansion of educational facilities in school education in recent years, a large number of the adolescent and the youth in the concerned age groups are unable to take advantage of formal schooling during stipulated school hours as it coincides with the productive labour required in rural areas for agriculture and in urban areas for a variety of income generating activities,” the working group has noted.
Therefore, It is necessary to design, create and establish alternative educational provisions for such prospective learners using open distance learning (ODL) mode in a more flexible framework.
“It is imperative that the states not having open schooling facilities need to gear up for setting up of SoSs and also wherever the states have such provision it require to be strengthened,” the working group recommended.
Besides upgrading and strengthening of the NIOS at national level, there is need to establish its “systemic linkages” with state open schools under Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) to improve the outreach of open schooling programmes with special focus on skill development, vocationalisation of secondary and senior secondary education, it added.