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Skilling Women, Empowering India: NIOS Paving the Way

Women participation in India’s workforce is low, and this needs to improve for India to reap its demographic dividend. The progressing economy of India needs 119 million skilled workers between 2017-2022. However, around 88.5 million women are yet not into any form of education, employment, or training. The proportion of working-age women receiving any form of vocational training over the past decade has only increased from 6.8% in 2011-12 to 6.9% in 2018-19, Vs an increase of 14.6% to 15.7% for men. There is an imminent requirement to empower girls and women in India through quality education and skilling. The Open and distance learning system can play a major role in achieving this mission. National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), an ODL institution, is providing quality education and skill training to girls and women in the country through its special programs. The present paper mainly focuses on NIOS experience in integrating vocational training with school education for girls in more than 300 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBVs), special Government residential schools for girls. This is in line with National Education Policy 2020, which recommends integrating Vocational Education into the educational offerings of all Secondary Schools over the next decade. An attempt will be made in this paper to present the concerted efforts by NIOS for the education of girls and women, its impact, and the way forward.