Real education: An anecdote for life

Education is the motive force behind development of any nation. Any nation aspiring to become part of the elite bracket of "developed nation" has to take education very seriously. There is direct correlation between GDP and education. This correlation doesn't stop with GDP. Countries that are higher on (EI) Education Index also have high HDI (Human Development Index), low corruption index, lower crime rate and lesser people in poverty.

To individuals education promises to bring prosperity and happiness to their lives. Education promises good career, better lifestyle and a means to end poverty and relentless drudgery for the masses.

Imagine a child embracing the promise of education, learning his lessons hard for more than a decade, doing everything that the school asks him to do, appears for his board exams, only to find that he has failed his exams. Think about the plight of this child when all his dreams are shattered, all promises of a good life are destroyed.

Now imagine plight of the whole region where every single student fails his/her board exam. What would happen to the future of these children? What would happen to the aspirations of their parents? This is no fiction, this is the story of Ladakh in the year 1993.

Not only in year 1993 but many years before and later performance have been abysmally poor in board exams. One would think that probably people of Ladakh are not fit for modern education.

Fast forward couple of decades and the pass percentage jumped to more than 75%. What made this change from 0% to 75% possible?

Welcome to the world of the visionary Sonam Wangchuk the real life Phunsukh Wangdu (Aamir Khan’s character Phunsukh Wangdu or Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad (Rancho) in the Rajkumar Hirani directed film 3 Idiots).

In 1994 the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) launched Operation New Hope (ONH), a campaign to provide "culturally appropriate and locally relevant education" and make government schools more functional and effective.

SECMOL Campus is located near the village of Phey in the Indus valley 18 km from Leh. Its built using simple, low-cost traditional techniques, all solar heated. The campus is home to about 70 students and a few staff and volunteers, who live, work and study there. The campus is maintained, and to a large degree run, by the students themselves on a democratic basis. To large extent its like modern day Gurukul.

Students at SECMOL are taught farming, construction, cooking and other life skills that are relevant to local environment. Over the years they have come up with many innovations using basic science to create an eco system that is self sustainable. Ladakh has over 300 sunny days per year and the sun is therefore a reliable source of energy and an alternative to fossil fuels. By using simple science they have utilised sunlight for multiple purpose.

Simple innovation that uses sunlight and a simple science concept called "heat convection" they devised method to keep the houses at +15°celsius when outside temperature is -15° celsius.

To cook they came up with simple solar cooker that makes innovative usage of concave mirrors.

They used solar energy not only to heat themselves but also the cow sheds. That humane gesture not only made cows comfortable but cows started giving 2-3 times more milk. This was due to a simple scientific reason that cows didn't need much food to keep themselves warm which translated into more milk.

Over the years they have perfected the art of making strong mud houses. Not only mud was available for free but had capacity to last for thousands years as compared to concert houses that would have life of mere 60-70 years.

Like this there are numerous innovation among which Ice Stupas (artificial glaciers) stands at the top. Sonam Wangchuk won prestigious Rolex award for this.

Ice Stupa is an innovation to solve the water problem for people of Ladakh. These ice stupas can store millions of litres of water that is useful in Spring when there is no water from mountain tops. Water from these stupas is helping making the area fertile. Ice stupas uses the fact that a conical surface will have very less surface area exposed to sunlight which will slow down the melting of ice to as much as 20%. These ice stupas are created by connecting the water coming down hills in winter with a vertical outlet pipe. Water comes out of these pipe in form of fountain and it freezes instantly in the surrounding temperatures of -20°C.

Students of SECMOL have taken this Ice Stupas even further and converted them to ice hotel by creating igloos inside these Ice Stupas. This has helped boost the tourism industry in the region. Now the group is working on building huge ice stupas to reduce the problem of massive floods that's happening because of global warming.

Sonam Wangchuk has donated his Rolex award winning of 1 crore to his dream project Himalayan Institute of Alternatives (HIAL).

Above story is perfect example of real education. Sonam Wangchuk's method education is real education. He hence proved that modern education was the real problem not the children of Ladakh.

Education should be such that it makes people self sufficient, teaches them how to make use of the local environment, how to leverage best from the culture. Teaching method should be practical oriented as that's the way human beings have been learning since millions of years.

In our modern schools most of the learning is by rote and have many irrelevant subjects. We are trying to cram information into our brains that the brain doesn't want to remember as it doesn't understand. Intent of education should be to ignite passion in students so that they love learning. That's how they will remember the subject.

Education is not to teach everyone same thing and make them do the same job. Every individual has his/her own unique talent, education should provide an environment to uncover their talent and help them hone them.

Every region has its own benefits and education should be modelled to harness the local knowledge. There is no point of teaching that pushes people to migrate to cities for better opportunities. Cities are already crowded. There are enough opportunities everywhere.

Sonam Wangchuk has created a unique world that's producing successful students and many innovations that are globally relevant. He has done this in extremely harsh conditions, with no infrastructure, no vegetation and no source of water during spring. If this can be done in a cold desert then it can be done everywhere.

Swami Vivekananda has great advices on education. This is what he has to say about real education.

Our education system should be revamped and should be transformed to impart real education to the students.