Abstract

Open education refers to a style of education with flexibility of admissions, as well as the when, where and what to learn. On the same theme, distance education refers to the process by which all or most of the instruction in an educational setting is conducted by someone removed in space and/or time from the learner, such as with online courses. Open and distanced education (ODE) platforms provide an alternate medium for potential learners who intend to attain an education but are unable to access regular schooling institutions for a variety of reasons.

This reports denotes the results of a study by CBPS which attempted to trace NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) graduates, India’s most popular open courseware educational platform for secondary and senior secondary education,  for their present educational and employment status in an attempt to gauge the value addition of the NIOS education they availed. It also looked to document the current status of the learners who were enrolled with NIOS between 2008-2012 and had completed their secondary and higher secondary education on the platform, with the intent of conducting a tracer study.

The study identifies the variation in learner profile as well as their current occupational status, with the study finding that the NIOS had played a successful role in providing access to schooling for learners with various vulnerabilities as well as having enabled a good proportion of graduates to continue with their high education or to search for better jobs, implying the open schooling provision enabled them towards some type of upward mobility.

CBPS. (2016). Tracing the education and employment status of open school graduates in India. Bengaluru: Centre for Budget and Policy Studies.