Union minister of state Subhas Sarkar addresses NIOS 33rd foundation day celebrations

NEW DELHI: Union minister of state for education (MoS), Subhas Sarkar addressed the 33rd foundation day celebrations of National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) as the event's chief guest. The celebrations were also attended by senior officials from the ministry of education (MoE), chairpersons of educational institutions, heads of departments, officers and other staff of NIOS.

Subhas Sarkar appreciated the programmes and schemes by NIOS and how the institute is spreading knowledge around the world. Talking about the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, he said: "Today's children will be young people in the age group of 30-40 years on the completion of 100 years of independence and will be responsible for building our nation."

He added that the ministry of education has entrusted the NIOS with multiple responsibilities including developing inclusive education resources, expanding the open and distance education system in states and union territories, translating all courses into more languages as required, creation of Indian knowledge tradition based courses and propagating Indian culture by translating them into major foreign languages.

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The MoS also praised the programmes including enrolling 10 crore adults under the 'basic literacy assessment', training of in-service teachers, the gender green project and training in Yoga. He lauded the fact that the Indian sign language as a subject at the secondary level has been acknowledged at national and international platforms. He deemed the launch of e-library called 'DEEP' by NIOS a big step forward.

NIOS, chairperson, Saroj Sharma spoke about the 33 year journey of the institution and highlighted its achievements in her speech. She stated that NIOS is one of the only two national boards of education under the MoE that provides school education through open and distance learning (ODL) for secondary, senior secondary and vocational education.

She further explained the role of NIOS in the field of education and the steps the in implementation of new education policy, virtual open school, digital library (DEEP), NIOS Education Project for Indian Army (NEPIA), agreement with ministry of defence for Agniveer project, setting up of Mukta Kaushal Kendras and subjects offered under Indian knowledge tradition.

A documentary on the journey of 33 years of educational endeavours of NIOS was presented on the occasion. In addition to this, the NIOS half-yearly magazine 'Pragyan' was also released.