NIOS Sociology Courses & Certifications

About National Institute of Open Schooling

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) was established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India in 1989 to increase literacy and provide education to people from every community and enable flexible learning for students. National Institute of Open Schooling is considered the largest Open Schooling System in the world. It is the national board that is the conducting body for Secondary and Senior Secondary examinations similar to the CBSE and the CISCE. NIOS also offers open basic education courses which include OBE 'A' level course, OBE 'B' level course and OBE 'C' level course which are equivalent to classes III, V, VIII respectively of formal education. In addition to that, it also offers other courses like secondary courses, senior secondary courses, vocational educational courses, life enrichment courses and D.EL.ED. course. 

It was initially established as the National Open School (NOS) through a Gazette notification vested NOS. Later, it was renamed the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) in July 2002. It has its regional centres in Allahabad, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Kochi, Patna, Pune, Dehradun, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Gandhinagar, Raipur, Chennai, Ranchi, Dharamshala, Visakhapatnam, Sikkim (Gangtok), Amethi. There are almost 7712 study centres which are known as Accredited Institutions (AIs), Accredited Vocational Institutions (AVIs), Accredited Agencies (AAs) OBE, Special Accredited Institutions for Academic and Skill Development (SAIASD), Special Accredited Institutions for Education of the Disadvantaged (SAIEDs) and Accreditation for ‘Indian Knowledge Tradition’ (IKT) Courses to meet the academic needs of people from all around the country.