All About NIOS: Courses | Eligibility | Exams | Regional Offices

All about NIOS: The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) is a national board of education (India) that administers examinations for Secondary and Senior Secondary levels, like CBSE. NIOS gets enrollment of about 3,50,000 students annually which makes it the largest open schooling system in the world.

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All About NIOS Courses:-

NIOS offer the following courses:-

• Open Basic Education Programme, including metioned three-levels courses:

a) OBE ‘A’ Level course (Equivalent to class III)

b) OBE ‘B’ Level course (Equivalent to class V)

c) OBE ‘C’ Level course (Equivalent to class VIII)

• Secondary Level Course (Equivalent to class X)
• Senior Secondary Level Course (Equivalent to class XII)
• Vocational Education Courses
• Life Enrichment Programmes
• D.El.Ed. Course

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All About NIOS Academic Courses for Secondary & Senior Secondary Levels:-

A candidate is required to pass in a minimum of five subjects to obtain a pass certificate, including one or maximum of two languages from Group ‘A’ and other 3 or 4 subjects from Group ‘B’.

However, a learner is free to take up to two additional subjects and thus can choose maximum of seven subjects.

Secondary Level: 

• From Group A, candidates can opt for one or two languages and remaining subjects to be taken from Group B.
• Two additional subjects can be taken from either of the two groups.

Group A

Hindi, English, Urdu, Sanskrit, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, Assamese, Nepali, Malayalam, Odia, Arabic,Persian, and Tamil.

Group B

Mathematics, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, Economics, Business Studies, Home Science, Psychology, Indian Culture & Heritage, Accountancy, Painting, Data operations.

Senior Secondary Level:

• The candidate can opt for five subjects with either one or two languages from Group A and the remaining subjects from Group B, C, D, E and F (only one subject from each group C, D, E and F).
• Two additional subjects can be taken from any group (only one subject from each group i.e., C, D, E and F).

Group A 

Hindi, English, Urdu, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Odia, Punjabi

Group B

Home Science, Mathematics, Psychology, Economics, Business Studies, Painting, Data Entry Operations, Geography

Group C 

Physics, History, Library science and Information Science

Group D

Chemistry, Political Science, Mass Communication 

Group E 

Biology, Chemistry, Introduction Law

Group F

Computer Science, Sociology, Environmental Science

All About NIOS Eligibility Criteria:-

Secondary Level: 

• Minimum Age – 14 years
• Class VIII passed
• A student giving a self certificate i.e., “I have studied enough to be able to pursue secondary course” is also eligible.

Senior Secondary Level:

• Minimum Age – 15 years
• Secondary level passed

All About NIOS Examination:-

Examinations are held twice a year in April–May and October–November. Results of the public examinations are announced usually six weeks after the last-date of examinations. NIOS examinations fee is Rs.250/- per subject and additional fee of Rs.120/- per subject involving practicals.

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All About NIOS Regional Offices:-

• Delhi
• Bangalore
• Hyderabad
• Pune
• Chandigarh
• Kolkata
• Bhubaneshwar
• Chennai
• Patna
• Kochi
• Jaipur
• Gandhinagar (Gujarat)
• Raipur
• Bhopal
• Jaipur
• Guwahati

NIOS FAQs (Quora):-

• How NIOS is different from CBSE? And is there any bar if one does 12th from NIOS? Do all the universities recognize NIOS (especially DU Regular)?
• How good is NIOS compared to CBSE?
• Is the syllabus for CBSE and NIOS the same? – Check Answers!