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India’s ambitions for education are essentially captured in the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. It is also committed to eliminate gender disparities in education, reaffirming the belief that education is a powerful tool in empowering women and enabling them to live a life of dignity.

Indeed, India has made significant progress in universalizing primary education by improving the enrolment and completion rates of girls in primary and elementary schools. However, the challenge now lies with secondary education as the dropout rate of adolescent girls is higher at secondary level (19.8%) than primary (6.3%). Further, while the net enrolment ratio of girls in elementary schools is 91.58%, it declines as they grow older with 52.57% for secondary and 31.42% for higher secondary. Hence, though a large proportion of girls enroll in primary schools, very few transition to higher classes and complete their school education till class 12.

Adolescence, a period between the ages 10 – 19 years, is a critical stage in every girl’s life marked by a decision to either transition to secondary school, enter into the labour market, or get married. Girls, especially from poorer households, face multiple challenges in completing their education. These barriers are a combination of demand-side and supply-side factors including economic, household level, school level, and cultural reasons. Understanding and supporting this group is critical to closing the gap in secondary education.

There is now a growing concern that COVID-19 might amplify these barriers and increase the gender gap in education. Girls are at more risk than boys of being discriminated against in terms of access to technology, household chores, and child marriage. Before COVID-19, India had 30 million out-of-school children, out of which 40% were adolescent girls. It is projected that post COVID-19, close to 10 million secondary school girls might dropout and a large number of these can be from India.

The potential impacts of COVID-19 on girls’ education are numerous. The most direct impact has been through the shutting down of schools to curb the spread of the virus. Since then, distance learning facilities (online platforms, TV broadcasting, radio, etc.) have been adopted to facilitate children’s learning during school closures. However, it has failed to reach all students due to the massive digital disparity across wealth, location, and gender. In India, the poorest girls and those living in rural areas have much less access to technology than boys. There exists a 50% gender gap in mobile internet users in India where 21% of women and 42% of men use mobile internet. Moreover, an assessment on issues faced by adolescents during COVID-19 found that more boys than girls had access to digital infrastructures such as mobile phones, internet services, radio, and media. With such low access to technology, digital schooling will further disengage girls from education and widen the educational inequalities among learners.

Even if girls do have access to technology at home, they are more likely to be disproportionately burdened with domestic responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, sibling care, collecting water, especially since schools, anganwadi, and child care centers are closed. The burden of household responsibilities keeps girls away from education and limits their learning opportunities. Household chores is one of the most commonly cited reasons by women for discontinuing their education. Among the percentage of ever enrolled women (3-35 years) currently not attending education, 30.2% reported engagement in domestic activities as their reason for discontinuing education.

Besides school closures, the widespread loss of livelihoods due to COVID-19 will also impact girls’ education. Many might dropout of the education system as the financial and opportunity cost of girls’ education is higher than boys', especially for poor households. Thus, as families go through economic hardships, it is likely that they reconsider the above costs associated with their daughters’ education. This becomes a bigger issue for adolescent girls since secondary education is not free of cost, unlike primary education. Further, there already exists a pro-male bias in the intra-household allocation of education expenditure, which gradually increases from primary up to the secondary stage. This can be through the non-enrolment of girls in schools or lower expenditures on her schooling.

Both, the lack of access to schools and economic hardships due to COVID-19 puts girls at a higher risk of gender-based violence and forced child marriage. Early marriage robs girls of their childhood and pulls them out of the education system. Economically over-burdened families consider it as an opportunity to free themselves from the liability of raising a girl child. Further, in situations of a crisis, families often view marrying off their daughters as a measure to ensure the safety and well-being of the girl child’s future. India already bears the world’s largest share of child brides equalling 23 million and is predicted to rise due to the pandemic. ChildLine India has reported a 17% increase in distress calls related to early marriage of girls this year in June and July as compared to 2019.

Measures needed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on girls’ education:

Efforts should be taken to ensure that girls continue to be engaged in learning during school closures by providing free access to technology such as mobile phones, laptops, and free data packs. Ensure that free learning materials like the distribution of textbooks and printed material are provided so that girls can study at their convenience.

To reduce the economic burden on parents, the cost of schooling for girls should be decreased through the provision of scholarships, incentives, cash transfers, and waiving off examination fees. Education for adolescent girls should be made free of cost by extending the Right to Education Act 2009 to include secondary education.

Plans to re-open schools should be gender-responsive and need to ensure a supportive environment for girls to return to schools. Gender disaggregated data should be collected to check progress on re-enrolment and attendance. Female teachers should be hired and school infrastructure must ensure proper WASH facilities especially gender-specific toilets.

Similarly, the budget allocations for education should be gender-sensitive and finances should keep flowing into the education sector. Public spending on education should be increased from the current 4.4% to 6% of GDP as mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Lastly, appropriate training methods and approaches should be conducted for teachers, the community, parents to train them to respond to the increasing gender-based violence and cases of child marriage.