Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma will lay the foundation of 104 high schools in tea garden areas across Assam. This is the second time in eight years that a state government is setting up schools in these areas since Independence. Prior to that, the British colonial government had set up 10 schools in different tea gardens across Assam.

KEY POINTS

=> Such a massive move to build high schools in tea gardens in the state has never been taken up. It is the first mega project to better infrastructure in education sector in tea garden areas that is being undertaken since Independence and is going to revolutionise work in the field of education.

=> The construction work will start on the same day the foundation is laid so that these schools can start functioning from the next academic session in April.

=> One of the biggest objectives that the state government aims to achieve is bring down the drop-out rate.On an average, if each family has five members, there would be around 40 lakh people and about 10% of them would be students who will now no longer have to drop out after middle school because of lack of infrastructure in their areas.

=> At present, no tea garden area has a high school. There are only lower primary and middle English schools. The Government have finalized setting up 119 high schools in tea gardens but a few in BTC areas cannot be done right away owing to code of conduct before the polls.

=> Each high school will cater to a cluster of five to six tea gardens and we have allocated Rs 1.19 crore for each one.

=> The LP schools at present in tea gardens are managed by the tea garden managements in almost all tea producing districts. There are 1,000 registered tea gardens and the government has announced just 119 high schools.