In a first, high schools to start in Assam tea estates

The State-Owned Priority Development fund was set up in 2020 to establish 119 model high schools across Assam’s tea belt

For the first time in more than 180 years, high schools will start functioning in Assam’s tea estates.

The Assam government had in 2020 established the State-Owned Priority Development fund to set up 119 model high schools in strategically-located tea estates. The State PWD was entrusted with constructing these schools at ₹1.19-crore each.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the academic year of 97 of these schools along with 13 others in non-tea growing areas will start from May 10. The date marks the completion of a year of his Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.

“This is for the first time in 75 years of India’s Independence that high schools have been set up in the tea garden areas. The academic session for 97 schools completed so far will start this year. The remaining 22 model high schools in tea gardens will be made functional from the next academic year,” he told the principals and teachers of these schools at a function in Guwahati on April 2.

Mr. Sarma said his government, determined to improve the academic environment in the tea gardens, would set up another 81 schools across the plantation areas. “The newly-established model high schools will also be upgraded to higher secondary schools,” he said.

The government is planning to provide breakfast apart from midday meals to students of these schools, the Chief Minister said.

The pay package for tea plantation workers has traditionally included the cost of education for their children. But tea estates in Assam, many of them ailing for the past couple of decades, had been requesting the government to take over education and other “social costs” for the industry to survive.