Tea Plantation Labour in India On the three tea districts, Dooars has the lowest rate of illiterates, at 38 per cent followed by Darjeeling at 43 per cent and Terai has the highest number of illiterates who formed 74 per cent of the sampled household heads. While Terai’s rate of illiteracy is high due to total neglect of education by the managementwhsat is also surprising is . that Darjeeling’s rate of illiteracy is also quite high. However, one positive aspect of the situation in Darjeeling is that the present school­going rate is fairly high which means that the future generations will be better off. The illiteracy rate in Dooars is the lowest but that is not saying much because given the fact that all plantations must have primary schools to cater to all the children in the garden one would expect that many more workers in the below 40 age~group would have completed primary school but this is not so. The most distressing aspect of education in the plantations is that there are very few workers with post-primary education. Only 24 per cent of the household heads in Dooars were educated beyond primary school and up to middle school. In Terai there were only two workers (that is, 4 per cent) who were in this category while in Darjeeling 16 per cent of the heads had studied beyond primary school. The lone worker who had completed Higher Secondary was from Darjeeling. Though the educational level of the present generation of workersis low, the educational levels are likely to be better in the future, especially in Darjecling, The total number of students in the 74 households in Dooars was 97 giving an average of 1.3 students per household. Though ­this is not very high, as one expects greater enrolment, it is still higher than the present rate of lliteracy, given the fact that 38 per cent of the heads areilliterate and 12 of them (16 per cent) are functionally literate. Darjeeling has the highest number of students. There were 115 students, almost two per household. The worst record was of Terai with only 29 students (0.6 per household). This i3 not surprising considering that none of the gardens covered had primary schools, . The enrolment rate of students, especially for post-primary education 15 related to the employment opportunities available for the future genera}tions. In Dooars and Terai regions people in the plantations have Very.httle scope of employment outside their gardens, Most of those seeking employment have to rely on temporary'jobs within the garden. 74 Tea Plantation Workers in West Bengal Hence there is little impetus for parents to educate their children beyond primary school because it is taxing for the children to travel long ‘distances and most gardens do not provide them transport, This also makes travel to schools expensive, even if education is free. The gains from this education maybe negligible because even after passing school suitable employment may not be available and the student may have to join as a manual labourer in the plantation. The situation is better in Darjeeling as the children of plantation workers are able to find jobs in the nearby towns or in the armed services, police, etc. Though Darjeeling is not a developed district, it is more developed than the other two tea districts because of its booming tourist industry. The children of plantation workers are able to find some jobs in tourism or in shops, hotels, ete. in the townships. Employment If one goes by the number of people who are employed and the number who are unemployed, one will conie to the conclusion that .the _ employment situation.in the plantations is very good. Apart from the 182 household heads we found that there were 227 more who were employed. This gives an average of 2.4 job-holders per houschold, The households in Docars had 91 people who were employed besides the 74 houschold heads which gives an average of 2.2 employed members per houschold. Terai had 76 members besides the heads who were employed, that is, 2.6 per household while in Daxjeeling the number employed was 60 giving an average of around two per household. Most of the employed in Dooars had jobs within the plantations they resided in. Out of the 91 who held jobs, 83 were employed in their gardens and 8 were employed outside their gardens. In Terai all 76 employed were working in their respective gardens. The proportion of those working outside the gardens was higher in Darjeeling. There were 35 working outside their gardens and 25 working within their gardens. The number of employed in the plantations appears to be fairly impressive. However, if one looks at the nature of employment tl.le picture will change. An overwhelming majority of those emplo.yed in Dooars and Terai were engaged as temporary workers in the ]