Taking NIOS to People

This is a silver jubilee year for the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), however, if we go to street and try to find 25 people knowing NIOS, we may not be successful. If you come out of the office of the NIOS or Its regional offices, and try to ask people if they know NIOS, in all probability the reply will be negative. This is true in the background that every year, about 400,000 students take admission in various NIOS programs, it has more than 5,000 study centres spread all over the county, and in abroad, it has 22 regional centres operating all over India, and millions of rupees are spent on advertisements and propagation every year, etc.

The story of Gujarat is not different. When I joined the Regional Centre in the year 2012, the number of students was only 1200. As per the rough calculation, NIOS was in no way earning from Gujarat (which may not be the objective of NIOS), it was not even at break-even point was spending a lot of money for maintaining its office and operations for the state of Gujarat (which may not be a viable proposition).

We tried to look at this problem from various angles. It was not that people did not want NIOS, it was that they did not know about it. Further, even if they knew about NIOS, there was a need, a faith is created in them about NIOS as the NIOS offers so much of flexibilities and facilities that it appears too good to be true. Further, although admissions in NIOS may be taking online, learning material is sent at their home, and Personal Contact Programmes are organized to support their efforts; there was a need to see how much they are prepared to make use of these facilities apart from how much effective those were on the ground. There seems to be a need to hold their hand at different steps of their progress in their pursuit of learning.

In the first go, we printed a colour brochure using day-to-day Gujarati idioms to explain NIOS features and programmes. It was generously circulated among people. Further, we simplified the advertisements released in Gujarat and released those in Gujarati. We have also brought out a poster on NIOS which can be hung on walls. We tried to give the message to people in very simple language, and the message that will touch them the most. We tried to tell them what is available for them in NIOS. Instead of going around the cliché of online admission, transfer of credit, etc., we tried to tell in simple and plain words, what a learner may achieve though this wondrous scheme, and what countless learners have already achieved through it, such as: admission without a paper qualification, choice of subject and medium, transfer of credits, freedom to learn and take examination at one’s own pace and convenience, low fee, free learning material and contact classes, and so on. We have also requested newspapers, magazines, Doordarshan, and All India Radio to bring out features on NIOS and several of those responded very positively. This was all about, spreading the information – taking NIOS to people.

The next requirement was creating faith in NIOS among people which was as much difficult as it was necessary. For this, we had thought of going to people and institutions, talking to them, and attending to their quarries and clearing their doubts. For this we planned a number of programs with schools, NGOs, and institutions. In all, we were able to conduct 39 awareness programs in various parts of Gujarat in just last 5 months which have been briefly presented in the following pages. We have taken help from local people to spread the message in target groups, and side-by-side, we have also advertised in the local news newspaper about these programs. Apart from other target groups, we have tried to target people who have failed in their examination and required help to find their way to complete their schooling. We have named those as “Educational Counselling Programmes” and tried to help those people overcome their hopelessness, and build their confidence.

We received a lot of help in this from NGOs. They helped us in organizing awareness programmes, sensitized their volunteers, and have even helped people take admissions in NIOS. Already, Navsrijan, Friends for All, Seva, Lokmitra are working with us and many more have shown their interest in NIOS. They even have set up Admission Facilitation Centres at their places. Just Navsrijan NGO has submitted 220 requests for such centres.

I have a feeling that unless one information Centre is available in each village the Gujarat (and for that matter at each village of India), we will not be able to take NIOS of the people. There has to be somebody available close to the people who can explain what NIOS is, and what benefits they can draw from NIOS. So far, the NIOS is depending on the study centres or to use the technical term followed by NIOS, accredited institutions (AIs) for which requirement in general is that of a regular running affiliated schools meaning we are again in the process of closing the openness of open school scheme and keeping those people away from it who needs it. The NIOS slogan “Reaching the Unreached” and “Education at Your Doorsteps” lost their meaning in this process. Further, the process of accrediting institutions to become NIOS study Centre is also a lengthy one and from the date of applying, it takes not less than four months to finalize the case; and sometimes it takes years altogether. Thus, we have experimented with Admission Facilitation Centres (AFCs), and since setting up of AFCs was in our hands, we were able to act quickly, and in a short span of time, we are able to set up 30 AFCs in Gujarat. We still are processing several applications.

With these kinds of interventions, we hope, we shall be able to reach all the people of Gujarat, not with the idea of increasing the enrolment of NIOS, but to take the message to people that there are still doors they may open and complete their schooling, and with NIOS, they will also find windows of freedom in their efforts.

This is an Introduction of a booklet NIOS Regional Centre  Gandhinagar has brought out in August 2014.