Rural Institute of Open Schooling - Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar

With an objective to provide a highly flexible type of education to the Secondary/ Senior Secondary Education level to the children belonging to rural areas, scheduled caste/ scheduled tribe, women etc., providing quality education through Open and Distance Learning System, to enable over-aged dropouts complete their schooling and in view of the need to accelerate the pace and progress of secondary education, especially in rural conglomeration, Rural Institute of Open Schooling (RIOS) has been established.

India has made progress in terms of increasing primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately three-fourths of the population. India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic rise of India. However, India continues to face stern challenges. Despite growing investment in education, 25% of its population is still illiterate;only 15% of the students reach high school, and just 7% graduate. The situation at senior/ higher secondary education is still disheartening. The quality of education is significantly poor as compared with major developing nations. It is also not possible for the government alone to create infrastructure for the growing number of students at secondary and senior secondary level. With a mission to provide relevant continuing education at school stage, up to pre-degree it is, therefore, important to open school with public-private partnership. The organization has been carrying out some research work also over the last 3-4 years. With the aim and objective of enhancing and accelerating the enrolment/ retention at secondary and senior/ secondary level, ‘Rural Institute of Open Schooling ’(RIOS) was conceived and has been set up as an autonomous registered body under the Societies Registration Act, with its registered office at Delhi, to begin with, with the following objectives:

To provide secondary and senior secondary education those belonging to disadvantaged groups (e.g. the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, Socially and Educationally disadvantaged classes and other socially, culturally, economically, geographically sections of the society, or such other factors as may be specified/ notified by the appropriate Government) and people belonging to weaker sections who are not able to get secondary and senior secondary education in the normal course of life.

To provide professional services to the government and other agencies in the field of education, in general, and school education, in particular, for the development and growth of distance and open school system and develop appropriate curriculum for vocational and continuing education to prepare student population for the world of work.