Education dept: NIOS students eligible for govt jobs in TN

CHENNAI: Students from National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) are now eligible for jobs in Tamil Nadu govt, a public notice issued by school education department said.
The announcement reverses the Dec 2023 order that said certificates issued by the board are not equivalent to those issued by the state board and some others.
Students can select six subjects from the 18 available under NIOS academic programme.They can also continue their education remotely, even while travelling, with support from a point-of-contact person (PCP), officials said.
NIOS is an open schooling board in India. It provides an alternative education platform for students who are unable to attend traditional schools or who wish to continue their education after dropping out.
At the secondary and senior secondary levels, NIOS provides flexibility in the choice of subjects, courses, pace of learning, and transfer of credits from the Central Board of Secondary Education and State Open Schools to enable learners' continuation. A student has as many as nine chances to appear in public examinations spread over a period of five years.
When the school education department issued the order last year, many students who passed classes X and XII from the NIOS struggled to get govt jobs, said NIOS Chennai director V Santhanam.
"Admissions declined too. We used to receive more than 9,000 admissions every six months. This reduced to around 4,000," he said.
Besides jobs, some students said it is difficult to get admissions into colleges. "After completing an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) course in Chennai, I studied for Class XII at a tutorial centre in the city through the NIOS. But I was denied admission in a private arts and science college in Coimbatore," said Manikandan N., a student.
NIOS has now launched outreach programmes in schools and colleges to increase awareness of open schooling.
"We have also introduced a new Indian knowledge tradition course this year for students interested in Vedas, yoga, science, and Sanskrit language. We hope admissions increase now," Santhanam added.