Socially Engaged Buddhist of Ladakh organises a formal talk on education ‘Present moment, wonderful moment’ on 23rd March at The grand Dragon.

Advocate Otsal Wangdus welcomed all the guest and briefed about the objective of organising the formal talk. He said, “We need to understand what education actually is.” 

Educationist from various Schools participated in the discussion. 

The speakers shared their experiences about where are we lacking in providing Holistic education and the present education system in Ladakh. Rote learning, spoon feeding categorisation among the students as bright and weak are some of the problems that exist.

 

Many of the speakers talked about the bitter truth that the schools are by and large, quite far from seeing education as a process of learning with understanding, acquiring knowledge through self-discovery and conceptualisation; rather, education remains a mere transmission of information in a rigid classroom atmosphere, where the emphasis is on memorisation and the objective is to rush through a pre-determined syllabus and prepare children for examinations. 

Geshe Konchok Wangdu questions that if we are getting quality education than why the unemployment rate has increased so much. In reality it should be decreased. He further added that it means that we are lacking somewhere. 

While some speakers stressed on Learning without Burden and demonstrated how the curriculum load was a burden on the child and highlighted the defects of the education system.

One of the speakers said, “Yet, despite increasing awareness that learning is not mere information accumulation and that teaching ought to be recast into a facilitation of children's discovery of their own potential and understanding, the emphasis in practice continues to be on textbooks and exams.” 

The conclusion of the talk was that it is time not merely for fostering greater awareness about the need for holistic education but also to chalk out more imaginative pedagogic means to make education an inclusive and quality-centric epistemic process.

At the end, it was decided that Lamdon School, Leh will host the next discussion soon.