OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING TOWARDS THE ERADICATION OF ILLITERACY OF THE TEA-GARDEN WORKERS IN BANGLADESH: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Development of a society means the accumulation of improvement of all units of the societywhatever it is small or large and important or less important. Needless to say that educationgoes identical with development. We have a large number of marginal people in differentsector and region. Tea garden workers are one of them who are working silently for theimprovement of the nation but they are not getting any educational degree in spite of theirnoble intention. Most of them are illiterate. Even they cannot make simple calculation oftheir household. Moreover, tea garden worker are low paid. About 56 percent labor work sixdays and 23 percent in seven days in a week but most of them are paid monthly less than2500 taka for each. Yet they (63 percent) want to study again though they face financialproblem (77 percent) and rest of them say about communication problem, unavailability ofschools, adjustment problem with the schedule of the school, unwillingness of the authorityand limited scope for the aged and dropped. Few of them claim against the managementauthority who often reluctant to give any chance for their betterment. It is impossible forthem to avail conventional education. Resultantly it seems that only education through openand distance learning will be effective for them. In this study, it will endeavor to explorestrategic issues and prospects of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) provided by BangladeshOpen University for the tea garden worker in the different regions of Bangladesh.