Making Education A Joy For Children Of The Snow

Here’s a peek into the journey of Sonam Wangchuk, whose offbeat efforts to transform education in Jammu & Kashmir’s remote Ladakh made him a Ramon Magsaysay awardee…

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

Here is a boy who never went to school till the age of nine. He is now the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for contribution to education.

The Magsaysay award, which is considered as Asia’s Nobel, recognized education reformer Sonam Wangchuk’s “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.”

Wangchuk, born in Uleytokpo in remote Leh, considers his mother as the best teacher one could get, besides mother nature. After being taught in his dialect by his mother till 9, Wangchuk began to attend Vishesh Kendriya Vidyalaya in Srinagar. He didn’t like it much there. In a lighter vein, he says he was ‘an outstanding student’ as most of the time he was sent outside the class as punishment.