Sonam Wangchuk. File.
| Photo Credit: ANI
Citing its “rather exemplary” implementation of the Union government’s National Education Policy, 2020, a House panel on Monday (December 8, 2025) recommended that the University Grants Commission consider recognition to the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh, (HIAL), founded by Ladakh educator and activist Sonam Wangchuk, who was in this September detained under the National Security Act after protests in Ladakh for tribal status turned violent.
The departmentally related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education in the Rajya Sabha, headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, on Monday tabled a report on a review of autonomous bodies and institutions under the Union Ministry of Education’s Department of Higher Education.
In this report, among its recommendations, the House panel dedicated a paragraph to its visit to Ladakh.
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“During its study visit to Ladakh, the committee was impressed with the academic, research, and entrepreneurship ecosystem at the HIAL, especially its success in implementing experiential education and learning rooted in local socio-cultural and ecological contexts.” The panel, however, noted its “concern” that the UGC had not recognised the institute despite the matter remaining pending for “many years”.
The House panel said the institute had “achieved tremendous impact on the local community and received international fame through its ice stupas and other community engagement activities”.
It added that the institute’s “experiential and project-based learning, community engagement, and integration of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)” was a “rather exemplary implementation of the NEP 2020, which calls for such measures.”
The committee also encouraged the UGC and the Department of Higher Education to “closely study the HIAL model” and consider how this can be replicated elsewhere through Centres of Innovation in Education or similar interventions.
Published – December 08, 2025 08:38 pm IST
