Chandra Bhushan Sharma, is Professor of Education at the School of Education, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. He served as the Chairman of National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) during April 2015 to April 2020. During his leadership the NIOS experienced a complete turnaround, with many landmark new initiatives including introduction of courses in Bhartiya Parampara leading to award of Secondary and Senior Secondary Certificate in Indian Knowledge Tradition. He has three decades of teaching experience. He is recipient of the President’s Award for “Commendable Contribution to Digital Initiatives” during the National Convention on Digital Initiatives for Higher Education on 9th July 2017 (Vigyan Bhawan), New Delhi. He has also been named Paul Harris Fellow in appreciation of tangible and significant assistance given “for the furtherance of better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International.” He has also been the Director of the Distance Education Programme of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (DEP-SSA) an MHRD-IGNOU project.

 

Recognizing his talent and contributions, the Government of India had assigned the responsibility of training of more than twelve lakh untrained in-service teachers to the NIOS through the Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed.) Programme and the same was completed in a record time of 18 months. He has been on various national policy framing committees including the Committee constituted by the Govt. of India to review the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) and the committee constituted by the Government of India to draft the Distance Education Council of India Bill in 2015. Both the committees looked at two very important areas namely the distance education and teacher education. He has been on various statutory bodies (Academic Council, Board of Management/Board of Governors etc. and also the Visitor's (President of India) nominee on selection committee) of various ODL as well as traditional institutions. He has been nominated by IGNOU as well as invited to national committees on various areas like 11th Plan, Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SSA), Rastriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyaan (RMSA), Samagra Shiksha, National Mission on Education - Information and Communication Technologies (NME-ICT), UGC Visiting Committees, National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) teams, National Council for Teacher Education planning as well as visiting teams, DEC-UGC-AICTE inspection committees etc. He has written as well as taken part in many national as well as state level educational planning discussion and brainstorming. He has also been invited to be Visiting Professor at various universities, besides been invited by international agencies like the World Bank for research studies.

 

He was a member of the Indian delegation led by the Hon’ble Human Resource Minister of India to the Commonwealth Ministerial meet held at Bahamas in May 2015. Prof Sharma was invited by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to facilitate in establishment of an open school in Nigeria in July 2018. 

 

Under his leadership, the National Institute of Open Schooling bagged the prestigious Commonwealth of Learning Award of Excellence for Institutional Achievement in Distance Education in November 2016. The NIOS under his leadership has made major contribution towards the education of the differently abled especially the hearing impaired. The initiatives for the deaf learners bagged the CoL Award of Excellence in Distance Education or Online Experience in 2019 through one of its deaf learners. His contributions towards revamping of the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and bringing the certificate at par with secondary and senior secondary was also highly appreciated.