PROJECTS
Important areas of activity were identified and projects launched for their fast and effective implementation to fulfil the mission and objectives of NOS in the context of the national policy perspective and EFA Summit Framework for Action, 1993. The Projects launched include :
* Open Basic Education
* Life Enrichment and Continuing Education
* Regional Languages
* Developing Learning Skills
* Multi-lingual Question Bank
* Student Support Services
* Human Resource Development
* Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation
Open Basic Education An innovative project on Open Basic education has been launched to provide a learning continuum through a graded three level course in order to meaningfully respond to the learning weds of neo-literates, the NFE learners and early school dropouts as well as to provide an alternative channel of schooling. This is also in response to the imperatives of joint Initiatives in Distance Education of the E-9 Summit Since the task is massive and continuing education of neo- literates must be location specific, the National Open School proposes to work as a resource agency. The actual implementation would be done by the state, district and sub-district level agencies.
During the year, a National Round Table Conference on Continuing Education for Neo-literates and a national level curriculum development workshop were held under the project The other activities under the project included identification of curriculum developers, module writers and, potential NGOs who can develop course materials; development of curriculum; preparation and collection of sample materials; development of lessons for level A in Environmental Studies and Mathematics; and Collaboration with other educational institutions for developing and field level testing of level A and B materials.
Life Enrichment and Continuing Education The Life Enrichment and Continuing Education Project has been launched to enable learning to be a lifelong activity which is 'age free' to provide relevant continuing and developmental education; to develop curriculum and self-learning materials for different countries, and to provide an appropriate evaluation strategy.
A variety of courses would be developed. These include courses on parenting instrumental technology, information science, music and graphic arts etc.
During the year, the work of curriculum development was initiated in three courses, namely, Science for All, Health for All and Women's Development and Empowerment Sample lessons on 'Health for All and 'Science for All' have been developed for serving as models.
Regional Languages The project on Regional languages has been launched to reach the
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deprived and socio economically backward sections of the society in the remotest parts and regions of the country through their mother tongue, regional languages.
Of the 14 regional languages proposed to be covered, work on the development of language curriculum as well as rendering of material has already been taken up in 10 regional languages, namely, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malyalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and Punjabi. New initiatives have begun in Oriya and Nepali. Work has also been taken up in Sanskrit. Out of these, significant progress has been made in Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and Urdu.
The programme through Bengali medium was launched during the year. Programmes in Marathi, Telugu and Urdu are likely to be launched during 1995-96. The work in respect of Kannada, Malyalam, Manipur and Tamil in progress.
Seven workshops were organised during the year under the project for developing language material and train people in language teaching through distance education mode in Marathi, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri, Sanskrit, Malyalam and Gujarati languages.
Developing Learning Skills among NOS students The project on 'Developing Learning Skills' has been launched to work out a strategy to develop the learning skills of NOS students in using self learning materials: to develop independent modules on different learning skills in print, audio and video with a purpose to supplement and complement each other; and to integrate learning skill exercises in the NOS learning materials.
During the year, a strategy paper/ basic document on developing learning skills among the open learners was brought out. So far efforts have been focussed on developing reading skills modules first. In this context, detailed curriculum has been formulated and a set of two draft modules on developing reading skills have been prepared. A script on video films on reading skills is also being made ready. In the meanwhile, preliminary work for preparation of modules and other learning skills such as 'Thinking and Problem Solving", 'Listening and Comprehension' etc. are being carried out.
Multi-Lingual Question Bank The major objectives of the project on Multi-Lingual Question Bank are to reduce the 'turn around time' taken in setting and moderating the question papers; to provide, centrally, a bank of `pre-validated' items; to provide the translated version of all banked items so that translation time for multilingual version of the same paper is minimised etc.
More than 30 school teachers and university readers have been contacted for item generation. Item generation workshops were also organised for Social Science, Science and Economics. The question papers of the last few years have been received from CBSE, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab and West Bengal. Relevant items have been pulled out from these papers in Science, Social Science and Mathematics.
By the end of the year, the item pool consisted of 9,256 items in the English version in different subjects of the secondary level. The Hindi translations were available for approximately 3,900 items.
Student Support Services The main objective of the project on Student Support Services is to organise student support services for supervising the activities of the accredited institutions spread all over the country' : coordinating their functioning; and providing professional support to them to run the system effectively and promote quality. The progress of the world, under this project is discussed in the chapter on Stu- dent Support Services.
Human Resource Development The project on Human Resource Development has been launched to, develop a strong and effective manpower for open schooling in the country,
The major activities under the project include development of training materials/packages alongwith training schedules; conducting training programmes; programme evaluation and organisation of seminars/ conferences.
During the year, 7 development programmes, listed in Appendix IV, were organised under this project which included orientation programmes for co-ordinators of the AIs, seminars and an international study
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visit-cum-conference.
A curriculum for the training package for the teachers of AIs was also developed and 6 draft modules were prepared.
Planning Monitoring & Evaluation The Project on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation has been launched with the basic objective of developing an internal mechanism to ensure the process of transformation of NOS to play the same lead role within the open school system as IGNOU plays with open universities.
During the year, a situational analysis of open schooling in India and cost analysis of open learning system at the school level were undertaken under the project. A Graduate Feedback survey was also undertaken to get feedback on various aspects of the educational programmes of NOS. About 800 filled-in Questionnaires were received, and the responses analysed. A detailed analysis has also been undertaken to understand the socio economic status of women candidates seeking admission to NOS courses.
Besides, consultancy services were provided by the project to the Government of India and some of the states. A detailed project was prepared for the state of West Bengal.
A paper entitled 'Open Schooling in India, Situational Analysis, Need Assessment and Strategy Identification and a document on Open Learning - A Socio Economic Analysis were also prepared.
Documents During the year, a number of study materials, training packages, hand- books and other documents were prepared under the projects. These are listed in Appendix I (Part III).
Programmes During the year, a number of development programmes, seminars, confer- ences and workshops were organised under the projects. These are listed in Appendix VI. Some of the important programmes are also discussed in the chapter on Human Resource Development.
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