New courses to be introduced at NIOS

KOCHI: The National Institute of Open Schooling will introduce ‘Aquaculture and ornamental fisheries’ to its list of vocational courses this year. Other programmes in the pipeline include a Tamil course at the senior secondary level and communicative Arabic.NIOS is known for its flexible schooling programmes. Under open schooling, a student can appear nine times for the public examinations at the secondary and senior secondary levels. This is apart from the on-demand examinations that the institute provides three days a week. The institute also provides flexibility in terms of subjects.  For instance, a student can opt for an alternative subject like painting instead of a regular subject like mathematics for his/ her secondary examination. This makes  open schooling an ideal destination for differently-abled students and for those who had to discontinue their schooling. Besides, there are a number of vocational courses. “In the case of the CBSE’s compartment exams and SAY exams of the state government, students can appear only for a limited number of subjects. Open schooling gives students an opportunity to clear the exams in all the subjects of their choice without wasting a year,”  said V S Rajendran, regional director, NIOS, Kochi. Ashok Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Management (AIH & TM), a division of India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and a public sector unit under the Ministry of Tourism, and NIOS, the largest open schooling system in the world, signed a MoU recently to deliver job oriented certificate/ diploma courses in the area of hospitality management through infrastructure created/ provided by ITDC. The NIOS, which is authorised to issue diploma/ certificates, has agreed to accredit 16 hotels of AIH & TM, which will function as study centres.