The children are running across a dusty schoolyard, their green uniforms fluttering as they race towards the open field. Some clutch notebooks. Others carry schoolbags. A few linger near the veranda of a single-storey building with a corrugated green roof.
Beyond the playground, bamboo groves rise against a pale sky. Two cows graze in the distance. A motorcycle stands beside the school steps.
Inside, the scene is quieter.
Children sit shoulder to shoulder on wooden benches, their exercise books spread across long desks. Pink and purple schoolbags are piled in front of them. A woman in an orange sari stands among the pupils. Behind her, blue wooden shutters cover the classroom windows.
This is Sribari Primary School, in a tea garden in Habiganj's Chunarughat upazila. It is an unlikely place for an educational experiment.
For generations, families here have lived by the rhythms of the tea plantation. The working day begins early. The hours are fixed. Wages are counted daily. Children grow up watching their parents work in the gardens, often with little prospect of escaping the same occupation.
But something is changing.
A school that once struggled to attract even a handful of pupils now draws hundreds of children from tea-worker families. Parents who once saw little purpose in formal education are sending their sons and daughters to classrooms.
Behind the effort is Paban Chowdhury, a former executive chairman of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority, or BEZA, who became chief adviser to Sribari Tea Garden in 2022.
He realized improving the lives of tea workers required more than better wages or working conditions. Their children needed a chance to build lives beyond the plantation.
He then helped materialize a modest but striking experiment in a community where educational opportunities have long been limited.
Sribari Primary School was established in 1913, during British colonial rule.
For much of its history, it operated from a small tin-roofed building. Enrolment was negligible. According to school officials, only five to seven children attended in a typical year.
The reasons were familiar across Bangladesh's tea-growing regions.
Poverty made education difficult. Parents had limited resources. Many children grew up in households where generations had worked on the same plantation. Formal schooling often appeared less urgent than the immediate demands of family life.
The school existed. But that did not mean children could readily use it. When Paban took up his advisory role in 2022, he began examining the garden's facilities. The condition of the school caught his attention.
He concluded that the plantation's long-term development depended partly on whether its workers' children could obtain an education.
The response was practical rather than elaborate.
School officials began approaching parents and encouraging them to enroll their children. Uniforms, notebooks, textbooks and other supplies were provided. The learning environment was improved. Families were assured that schooling would not impose additional costs.
The garden authorities agreed to cover the school's operating expenses.
The initiative gradually expanded beyond Sribari to two neighbouring tea-worker communities, Jangalbari and Bheriyali.
Teachers now report 233 pupils at Sribari, 75 at Jangalbari and 45 at Bheriyali — a combined 353 children across the three locations.
The numbers represent a substantial change from the school's earlier years, though school officials' accounts of total enrolment differ and require reconciliation.
At Sribari, the school day begins at 10 am and ends at 3 pm.
Children attend classes from pre-primary through Grade Five. The school operates in shifts, making use of limited classroom space.
Headteacher Dipali Baidya oversees the programme, assisted by six other teachers working across the three locations.
This year, according to Dipali, 38 pupils are enrolled in Grade Five. The lessons extend beyond reading, writing and arithmetic.
Children are taught general knowledge, social behaviour, discipline and civic responsibilities. The school day begins with a parade, the national anthem and the raising of the national flag.
To families accustomed to counting every taka, the absence of school fees matters.
The garden authorities pay for uniforms, books, notebooks and other educational materials. Parents do not have to purchase the basic supplies their children need to attend classes.
Tushi Baidya, who teaches mathematics, understands the circumstances of her pupils.
She was born in a tea garden in Sylhet and grew up in a plantation community. After completing her education, she married a worker at Sribari Tea Garden.
Her own experience gives her a close understanding of the barriers facing tea workers' children. "Alongside textbooks, we teach children general knowledge and social discipline," she said.
"Children from tea-worker families do not have to spend anything on their education. Everything is provided by the school."
She said Paban Chowdhury regularly visits the garden and monitors the school's activities. The garden manager and assistant managers also keep track of its operations.
But the more consequential change, she said, has taken place inside families.
Children are increasingly interested in studying. Parents are becoming more conscious of the value of education. The school is no longer merely a building within the plantation. It is becoming part of the community's daily life.
The teachers point to examination results and attendance as evidence of progress. School officials say pupils have performed well in assessments and expect the current Grade Five cohort to do the same.
Yet the school's longer-term achievement may be measured less by examination scores than by what happens to its pupils after they leave.
Gouranga Baidya once sat in a classroom at Sribari Primary School. Today, he is an elected member of Ward No. 9 of the Satiyajuri Union Parishad.
He credits his early education with helping him establish a life beyond the occupation that sustained generations of families in the plantation.
Schooling, he said, gave him the foundation to pursue other opportunities and eventually serve his community as an elected representative.
He is not the only former pupil to have followed a different path. According to school officials, several former students have joined the Bangladesh Army, Border Guard Bangladesh and other law enforcement agencies over the past two years.
Others have entered government and private-sector employment.
Hundreds of children who completed primary education at the school have gone on to secondary schools in Chunarughat. Some have moved to Dhaka for further education or work.
Ganesh Tiunia is a tea worker. His daughter, Rittwika, is in Grade Three at Sribari Primary School. She says her father does not want her to follow him into the tea garden. He wants her to study, establish herself and have a different life.
Rittwika goes to school each day hoping to fulfil that ambition. Her classmates share similar hopes. Among them are Grade Five pupils Mayuri Baidya, Malati Santal, Gouri and Sukanta Rikishian.
They are still young. Their ambitions have not yet taken the shape of specific careers. But they are growing up with possibilities that were less accessible to many of their parents.
Outside their classrooms, the plantation continues its familiar routine.
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