Bringing tea garden children into light of education

Children of tea garden workers at an 'education centre' run by SEWA, an NGO, in Shemshernagar. PHOTO: STAR

The students are supplied with books and instruments for free. They were also given warm clothes in the winter.

Encouraged by the SEWA initiative, some local unemployed educated youths, most of them from tea garden families, have come forward to spread the light of education in gardens where labourers traditionally remain illiterate. These young men do the job voluntarily.

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Asha Rani Pandit, Sanath Goala, Narayan, Korapin Undu are among the teachers.

"I am from a worker family in a garden. I am educated and want to remove illiteracy from my community", Asha Rani Pandit told this correspondent during a visit to one of the centres in Shamshernagar tea garden.

Naryan said people, particularly labourers, in tea gardens remain illiterate because of lack of initiative by the government and garden owners.

The SEWA initiative has created awareness among labourers about the need for education and they are now sending their children to schools.

Illiteracy will remove social ills, improve their lifestyle and decrease common diseases among them, he said.

Narayan said the teachers and SEWA men have launched a campaign in gardens to make labourers conscious. This is working well, he said.

Primary education is compulsory but the programme is yet to be implemented in most of the 158 tea gardens in the country.

Only three of the gardens have government primary schools. The rest have their own primary schools, run by garden authorities, sources said.

Most of these schools are in run down condition, many of them having only one teacher for all students from class one to class five. Even, these schools do not get free books for students from government.

Dropout rate in these schools is very high due to their bad condition, poverty and reluctance of labourers towards education.