The schools operating in most plantations only provide the first three years of education to the children living there. No high schools exist within an hour's walking distance from most plantations. Upper primary grades and high-school services should be made available to those communities, within reasonable distances, by the Ministry of Education. These services can be organized and operated during the harvest season when children may suffer from a lack of maternal care as most women are working on the harvest. Mothers have less opportunity to feed their children properly, having neither the time nor the most appropriate kinds of food.
Mothers also have less time to take children to a clinic if they become ill during the harvest.
Fully breast-fed children present fewer feeding problems, as they are carried by mothers to the fields where they are fed on demand. The availability of an effective medical care programme will have important effects on the health and nutritional status of these population groups. There is a problem of overcrowding in the housing areas within the plantation. The land and the buildings belong to the owner of the plantation. Thus, there is insufficient motivation by labourers to invest in improvements in housing conditions.