The National Institute of Open Schooling will soon launch Vocational stream courses at Senior Secondary level for students who do not have access to higher education. This was decided at the 20th General Body meeting of the National Institute of Open Schooling, NIOS held in New Delhi. During the meeting which was presided over by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal it was also decided that the open school will increase the Gross Enrollment ratio at secondary level by 15% through setting up and promotion of open schools in the states. Mr. Sibal said that NIOS should emerge as a model distance learning institution with emphasis on catering to the contemporary needs of the country which has targeted to achieve 500 million skilled people by 2020.AIR Correspondent reports that the meeting deliberated on the various issues related to developing a strategy plan for up-scaling the school education starting from primary level to the Senior Secondary level.