Sonam Wangchuk: Nurturing autonomy

Sonam Wangchuk

AS he works to gradually solve the poor living conditions and educational landscape by capacitating the community of a remote region in North India, where water is scarce, weather is harsh, minorities are treated inferior, and lands are disputed as a result of industrial revolution, Sonam Wangchuk urged leaders to redesign the world’s outdated education system to heal the planet.

“The world is stuck with a 300- year- old education system when at the onset of the industrial revolution, the focus was exploiting nature for human need or greed,” Sonam Wangchuk said in his speech during the Ramon Magsaysay awarding ceremonies on August 31.

“I appeal to the leaders of the world to recognize this war and have a relook at the meaning of defense in the 21st century,” Wangchuk, one of the six 2018 Ramon Magsaysay awardees, said.

“The world spends $1.7 trillion a year on defense. Defense in the future will not be India arming itself against China or China against the US. It will have to be all countries pooling their resources to defend themselves from new environmental challenges and climate change. In just one year, India and China together lose roughly 5 million lives to air pollution alone — lives lost without a

enemies across borders,” Wangchuk added.

With these challenges, Wangchuk made it his life’s mission to produce Ladakhi real-life problem solvers through contextual, relevant, simple and creative ways.

Wangchuk was born in 1966 in Uleytokpo Uleytokpo, near Alchi in the Leh district of o Jammu and Kashmir. He went from tutoring peers to changing mainstream education system of Ladakh, which is at the center of a row among India, Pakistan and China over northwest Jammu and Kashmir region or Trans- Himalaya.

In an interview with Hindustantimes , he said he grew up sowing seeds and he learned how to read and write from his mother in tiny village with four households.

He said that the schools were lacking, “teaching standards dreadful, textbook content locally irrelevant, and the medium of instruction alien in the mountains.”

At 19, because he was always left alone to fend for himself, Wangchuk thought of and started offering tutoring lessons while studying to become an engineer at the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar, Kashmir.

It was through teaching Basic English and Math that he discovered serendipitously how “poorly educated the students in village schools were.” He was able to take around 100 students under his tutelage.

More than making money, he “saw that many of them were failing in the mainstream examination.”

What started as a tutoring session became a vocation — to help change the problematic learning system in Ladakh.

When he graduated in 1988, Wangchuk founded Students’ Education and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (Secmol) and started Ladakhi students.

Secmol worked with local government in a joint educational reform program, which is highly based on context.

They pilot tested in a village school. They trained teachers to teach subjects in a way that they are relevant to the Ladakhi culture and context, prioritizing English over Urdu, an Indic language and the

promoted the Ladakhi language.

“Learning should be contextual when it is in context, it is hard to forget. It is hard to remember when you read, write or memorize without context and out of place,” Wangchuk said.

The pilot became a success, and the pragmatic approach was adopted in 33 other schools.

Village education committees (VEC) were established in support of schools, keeping track of teacher performance, and “becoming true stakeholders.”

Expanding his cause further, Wangchuck founded “Operation New Hope” (ONH) to strengthen the collaboration-driven educational reform program.

So far, the ONH has trained 700 teachers, 1000 VEC leaders, and dramatically increased the success rate of students in matriculation exams from just 5 percent in 1996 to 75 percent by 2015.

In 1998, Wangchuk opened sustainable, environment-friendly Secmol school, with a permanent faculty, volunteers, and an average of 300 students annual. Now, they are building a university.

A Ladakh boarding

and

associate- level school,

courses,

it develops life skills, revisits the fundamentals and offers courses ranging from leadership training to solar power installation” was also built through his help.

So far, it has produced students who have become pioneering en-

RM site said.

Wangchuk has been working with the government for 30 years now to change the educational vista through adoption of a pragmatic approach towards learning and creative measures to solve problems of their community.

He introduced reforms such as “de-schooling” or making students break free from squares and rectangles and learn by doing, because education should not be torturous and gaining “paper knowledge.”

“Education,” he said, “is about solving problems and making people happier so as not lose our

He stands firm on his belief that students should be treated as responsible, thinking individuals.

“Nature has equipped them with enough sensibilities and energies to take care of not just themselves but of their loved ones.”

He was also determined that universities these days do not teach real life skills and that books play a little part in teaching students knowledge.

“A university has become this theoretical place where you gain paper knowledge. Paper exams and degrees. Nothing real. So, the world needs does university where you learn hands on,” Wangchuk said.

Because of his initiative, the failure rate of Ladakhi students in mainstream examination went down dramatically to 25 percent from 95.

To address water scarcity brought by unforgiving global warming in Ladakh, he thought of inventing ice stupas or building

during the dry summer.

These are “conically-shaped ice mountains, that store water in winter and in summer melts to supply farm irrigation water.”

Non- confrontational in his leadership approach, Sonam Wangchuk, continues to dream of ways to help the people of La-

possibilities are endless.”

His will to autonomy empowerment remains vibrant, says award-giving body Ramon Magsaysay Foundation.

Wangchuk received the 2018 RM Award because the board of trustees “recognizes his uniquely systematic, collaborative and community-driven reform of learning systems in remote northern India, thus improving the life opportunities of Ladakhi youth, and his constructive engagement of all sectors in local society to harness science and culture creatively for economic progress, thus setting an example for minority peoples in the world.”

Magsaysay was the seventh president of the Philippines and the third after World War 2. His presidency from 1953-1957, though short-lived, has been referred to as the “Golden Years” for lack of corruption.

In his honor, the award, Asia’s parallel to the prestigious Nobel Prize Award, celebrates the spirit of

as it recognizes the new roster of individuals who excelled in their