Journal of Tea Science Research. 2015, Vol. 5, No. 5, 1-8
1
Research Report Open Access
Study on Socio-Economic and Educational condition of Tea Worker at Sylhet
in Bangladesh
Ahmad I.
1
, Yasin M.
1
, Rowshon A.
1
, Rafikul IslamA.K.M.
2
1. Department of Food Engineering and Tea Technology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet-3114, Bangladesh
2. Project Development Unit, Bangladesh Tea Board, Srimangal, Maulvibazar, Bangladesh
Corresponding author email
Journal of Tea Science Research, 2015, Vol.5, No.5 doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2015.05.0005
Received: 17 Jul., 2015
Accepted: 18 Aug., 2015
Published: 15 Sep., 2015
© 2015 Ahmad I. and Yasin M., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Ahmad I. and Yasin M., 2015, Study on Socio-Economic and Educational condition of Tea Worker at Sylhet in Bangladesh,
Journal of Tea Science Research,
5(5), 1-8
(doi
Abstract
Bangladesh is one of the largest tea contributors among south Asian countries in world’s tea market as well as a good
consumer of tea. The very future of tea gardens greatly depends on tea laborers who spend most of their life in the tea garden. But, so
to speak, they have been living in misery from the very beginning of the establishment of tea gardens in Bangladesh. As being
humans and/or for the betterment of the tea gardens, they deserve better life than they are now living. It is simply an attempt that has
been made in this paper to understand the socio-economic condition in some of the tea gardens of Sylhet division which actually
reveals the socio-economic conditions of tea workers as a whole that are yet to be exposed in our country. This paper deals with
different aspects of socio-economic conditions of tea labors insinuating on some intriguing issues of social, economical, political and
educational status of these deprived people. Special attention has been underscored on the knowledge of the people regarding
importance of education where only 8% of tea labors of our survey sample go to different colleges whereas highest percentage of
them (around 54%) just attended primary school. The investigation also took attention on health conditions of tea workers which
shows that around 75 out of 100 people suffer from different diseases. The paper also investigates the economic conditions of tea
labors that show the highest income of a tea worker family is near about 12000 tk per month that was actually 4% of survey sample.
However, the average income of a family of a garden is 6245 tk. per month that is too little for a worker to live a lower class lifestyle
along with his/her family. Other attention also took place on marital status, sanitation condition, trade union membership, the amount
of child labor etc. It has been suggested in the paper that all out efforts must be made to raise awareness among the tea gardeners
about human rights and related matters.
Keywords
Socio-economic condition; Tea workers
1 Introduction
Bangladesh is a tea producing country. There are many
tea gardens in this country where many tea laborers
find their livelihood.
According to Bangladesh Tea
Board there are 87,534 registered and 20,065
non-registered tea workers who work in 163 tea
estates of Bangladesh. Most of the tea estates are
located in the Northeast of the country where our
study was conducted. Tea brings much desired cash
for Bangladesh, but those who work on the ground to
produce it are very much less fortunate people. The
people working in different tea gardens all over the
country have been leading a life of untold misery.
And
the tea laborers have a community of their own apart
from the mainstream.
The living conditions of the
people in tea gardens are worse than we can expect
especially economical, social and cultural side of their
life. There is a contention that the women, children, and
adolescent girls are the most vulnerable groups in terms
of human rights condition in tea gardeners.
Unfortunately there is hardly any development
program initiated either by the government or
non-government organization in tea garden area. Even
though the government has undertaken various
programs for the citizen of Bangladesh, but the tea
gardeners become out of the implementation of these
programs. This is unfortunate that the laborers of tea
gardens make major contribution to the entire
production of tea, but the deterioration of
