Ladakh Schools

The Moravian Mission opened a school in Leh in October 1889, and the Wazir-i Wazarat of Baltistan and Ladakh prepared that every family with more than one child should send one of them to school. The school taught Tibetan, Urdu, English, and Geography, Sciences, Nature study, Arithmetic, Geometry and Bible study. It is still in existence today. The first local school to provide western education was opened by a local Society called "Lamdon Social Welfare Society" in 1973. Later, with support from HH Dalai Lama and some international organizations, the school has developed to accommodate approximately two thousand pupils in several branches. It prides itself on preserving Ladakhi tradition and culture.

Schools In Ladakh

Schools are well distributed throughout Ladakh but 75% of them provide only primary education. 65% of children attend school, but absenteeism of both students and teachers remains high. In both districts the failure rate at school-leaving level (class X) has for many years been around 50%. Before 1993, students were taught in Urdu until they were 14, after which the medium of instruction shifted to English.

In 1994 the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) began Operation New Hope (ONH), a movement to offer "ethnically suitable and locally appropriate education" and make government schools more functional and useful. Eliezer Joldan Memorial College is a government degree college of Ladakh, which makes possible students to pursue higher education in Ladakh.
According to the Year 2001 poll, the in general literacy rate in Leh District of Ladakh is 62% (72% for males and 50% for females), and in Kargil District of Ladakh 58% (74% for males and 41% for females). Conventionally there was little or nothing by way of official education except in the monasteries. Usually, one son from every family was appreciative to master the Tibetan script in order to read the divine books.

Schools of Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh

At the schools of the Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh have 4 major traditions. They show a marked degree of have common characteristics so that, "about eighty percent or more of the characteristics of the Tibetan schools are the same". Differences include use of apparently, but not actually, conflicting terms, opening dedications of texts to diverse deities and whether phenomena are described from the viewpoint of an unenlightened practitioner or of a Buddha. The 14th Dalai Lama explains that "there are no major theoretical dissimilarities between them".
Kagyu (pa), "Lineage of the (Buddha's) Word". This is an oral tradition which is very much concerned with the empirical measurement of consideration. Its most well-known proponent was Milarepa, an 11th-century spiritualist. It contains one major and one minor subsect. The first, the Dagpo Kagyu, includes those Kagyu schools that mark out back to the Indian master Naropa via Marpa, Milarepa and Gampopa and consists of four major sub-sects: the Karma Kagyu, headed by a Karmapa, the Tsalpa Kagyu, the Barom Kagyu, and Pagtru Kagyu. There are a further eight minor sub-sects, all of which trace their root to Pagtru Kagyu and the most distinguished of which are the Drikung Kagyu and the Drukpa Kagyu. The once-obscure Shangpa Kagyu, which was eminently symbolized by the 20th century teacher Kalu Rinpoche, traces its history back to the Indian master Naropa via Niguma, Sukhasiddhi and Kyungpo Neljor.