Subjects offered to learners in Madrassas by National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) under Special Provision for Quality Education of Madrassas (SPQEM) are without "any hard-line boundaries of fixed subject combinations", the government said on Wednesday.
The HRD (including education) Ministry, in a statement, said that various subjects are offered to learners under this provision and NIOS accredits Madrassas under SPQEM.
"It is totally the discretion of the learner to opt for subject combination from the bouquet of the subjects provided by NIOS," said the Ministry.
The Ministry issued the statement rejecting a news titled "NIOS to take Gita, Ramayan to Madrassas" that was published on Wednesday in a section of media. The Ministry' statement said "this news has distorted facts, misrepresented truth and seems to be of malicious intent".
There are around 100 Madrassas with 50,000 students are accredited with NIOS, the Ministry further said, adding there are plans to accredit around 500 more Madrassas with the NIOS in the recent future--totally on the basis of demand of Madrassas.
NIOS is the board of education under the Central government. Formerly known as National Open School (NOS), it was established in November 1989 as an autonomous organisation in pursuance of National Policy on Education 1986 by the Ministry of Education (MOE).
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 Central government through a gazette notification vested NIOS with the authority to examine and certify learners registered with it up to pre degree level courses whether Academic, Technical or Vocational.
