The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) also known as National Open School (NOS) was established in November,1989 as an autonomous organisation in pursuance of National Policy on Education 1986 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD), Government of India.

NIOS is providing a number of Vocational, Life Enrichment and community oriented courses besides General and Academic Courses at Secondary and Senior Secondary level. It also offers Elementary level Courses through its Open Basic Education Programmes (OBE).

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) provides opportunities to interested learners by making available the following Courses/Programmes of Study through open and distance learning (ODL) mode. NIOS offers 26 subject in seven mediums (Hindi, English, Urdu, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Malayalam) for Secondary Examinations and 19 subjects in Hindi, English and Urdu mediums for Senior Secondary Examinations. Besides these, NIOS has provision of offering 10 Vocational subjects in combination with Academic subjects at secondary stage and 20 vocational subjects in combination with Academic subjects at Senior Seondary level.

It offers 86 Vocational Education programmes in different areas such as Agriculture, Business and Commerce, Engineering and Technology, Health and Paramedical, Home Science and Hospitality Management, Teacher Training, Computer and IT related sectors, Life Enrichment Programmes and General Services. Knowledge, skills and qualities of entrepreneurship

NIOS has Regional Centre in Noida, Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Guwahati, Pune, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Kochi, Jaipur, Bhopal, Allahabad, Dehradun, Gandhi Nagar and Bangalore.