NIOS, Odisha partner to re-enrol school dropouts through open and distance learning

In an ambitious step towards inclusive and equitable education, the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has partnered with the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA), Government of Odisha, to bring back dropout and out-of-school children to the formal education.

The initiative aims to enable such students to complete their secondary and senior secondary education through the flexible Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode of NIOS, the institute said in an official statement.

The partnership will be accrediting selected schools under the NIOS system for facilitating admissions for children in districts with high dropout rates. These avenues for academic learning will also foster “confidence, motivation, and continuity among learners who were once deprived of formal education,” the statement added.

The agreement was signed by Col. Shakeel Ahmad, NIOS secretary and Ananya Das, IAS, SPD, OSEPA, Government of Odisha, in the presence of Akhilesh Mishra, NIOS chairman.

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The collaboration between “NIOS and OSEPA marks another milestone in NIOS’s mission of ‘Education for All, Reaching the Unreached’ reaffirming its role as the largest open schooling institution in the world dedicated to making education accessible, inclusive, and empowering for every child,” it said.

While national surveys, including the Economic Survey 2024-25 and UDISE+ data, highlight a steady decline in dropout rates over the past couple of years, experts have attributed the decrease to poor infrastructure, uneven enrolment rates and retention patterns.

Dropout rates across various levels of schooling have also seen a steady decline, with primary dropout rates at 1.9%, upper primary at 5.2%, and secondary at 14.1%, according to the Economic Survey.