Open Basic Education Through Open Schooling in India: Exploring the Genesis, Evolution and Current Trends for Navigating the Future Pathways

Over the past few decades, the open schooling system has changed the canvas of school education across the globe since its emergence is directly connected with the issues of equity and social justice regarding access to school education among the ‘unreached’ and ‘excluded’. The idea of introducing open schooling emerged in India in the 1970s as an alternative channel to meet the challenge of bringing unschooled children and adults within the purview of school education. The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has been remarkably operating the Open Basic Education (OBE) programme since 1994 at the elementary level among the ‘unreached’ and ‘excluded’. The OBE programme is a highly significant alternative modality in universalising elementary education in India. Against this backdrop, the article aims to trace the genesis and evolution of the open schooling system in India from the lens of policy perspectives. Before delving into the current trends of the OBE programme under the NIOS in the last two decades, it unpacks the backdrop of the emergence of the OBE programme. It also seeks to review the current trends of the OBE programme in the light of a rights-based approach to child’s education, and ends with some future pathways to revamping the present ecosystem of the OBE programme for catalysing elementary education in India.