National Institute of Open Schooling

National Institute of Open Schooling
राष्ट्रीय मुक्त विद्यालयी शिक्षा संस्थान
AbbreviationNIOS
FormationNovember 12, 1989 (1989-11-12)
TypeNational, Open Schooling
Legal statusActive
Location
Official language
  • Hindi
  • English
Chairman
Dr. Akhilesh Mishra
Director
Dr. Rajiv Kumar Singh
Parent organisation
Ministry of Education (India)
Students112,000+ (2024)
Websitenios.ac.in
Formerly called
National Open School

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) (Hindi: राष्ट्रीय मुक्त विद्यालयी शिक्षा संस्थान), formerly National Open School is a national level board of education in India, controlled and managed by the Government of India. It was established by the Ministry of Education (formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development) of the Government of India in 1989.

The NIOS operates through a network of five departments, 23 regional centres, two sub-regional centres, two NIOS cells, and more than 7,400 study centres (AIs/AVIs) across India and abroad. It is recognized as the largest open schooling system in the world, with a cumulative enrolment of over 4.13 million learners during the last five years.

Between 2004 and 2009, NIOS recorded a cumulative enrolment of about 1.5 million students at the secondary and senior secondary levels, and it continues to enrol around 350,000 learners annually. NIOS functions as an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Education, Government of India, similar in status to other national educational boards such as the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).