The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the unprecedented disruption of education globally threatening to reverse gains made in access to education and learning across countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents. Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted 94 per cent of the world's student population, up to 99 per cent in low and lower-middle-income countries. The crisis is exacerbating pre-existing education disparities by reducing the opportunities for many of the most vulnerable children, youth, and adults – those living in poor or rural areas, girls, refugees, persons with disabilities and forcibly displaced persons – to continue their learning. Learning losses also threaten to extend beyond this generation and erase decades of progress, not least in support of girls' and young women's educational access and retention.
The education scenario of India is even alarming. Among many of the Covid-19 lockdown, a digital divide in the Indian conventional Education system has been seen. Shifting offline classes to online classes is itself a challenge, especially in a country like India. Similarly, the education disruption has had and will continue to have, substantial effects beyond education. Closures of educational institutions hamper the provision of essential services to children and communities, including access to nutritious food, affect the ability of many parents to work and increase risks of violence against women and girls.
The unprecedented disruption to education systems has made a particularly devastating impact on the situation of girls' education. Shutting down the educational institutions for a longer time, economic crisis during the time of lockdown discourages the women to opt for education. Different surveys have pointed out that the girls dropping rate has been one of the emerging issues during the Covid-19 pandemic and experts pointed out that it would be another raising issue even after the post-Covid era. The parliamentary panel report and submissions made by the Education Ministry indicate a concerning decline in enrollment of girl students and a substantial dropout from schools during the pandemic. The panel observed that in the post-pandemic scenario, the probability of more teenage girls dropping out of school permanently to help with household tasks and childcare is very high. The dropout ratio for girls during 2019-20 was 15.1. According to a study undertaken by the Malala Fund, which took sample populations from the five states of Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, and Delhi, in 71% of cases, phones are owned by a male family member. This can hinder girls' access to phones as they may be hesitant to ask their male family members. Male family members often hold the authority at home and thus have the power to limit or deter girls' phone usage. Only 26% of girls said that they could access the phone present in the household whenever they wanted to, that compared to 37% of boys.
The lower socio-economic background has been one of the important reasons that indirectly enhance the girls' dropout rate. Due to traditional gender roles, women are encouraged to do the household work. Rather than questioning conventional thinking, women are expected to do gender-based work. Getting an education has been already one of the challenges for the women and that turns relatively more difficult, especially during the time of Covid-19. Before the time of Covid-19, girls from poor households were more disadvantageous than boys in terms of their access to education. In case of limited resources, poor households may decide to send only boy children to schools rather than girls. Meanwhile, in such a situation conventional gender thinking has been playing a very significant role. Domestic violence has been another issue that encourages the increasing rate of dropout of girls. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, have intensified. Meanwhile, women have to face various health-related issues due to continuous experiencing domestic violence and that compels them to leave their schools or colleges. Though before the pandemic situation learning has been a more serious issue among third world countries and according to various research more than 10 million girls were reported as missing from the various educational institutions. The situation has deteriorated during and post-pandemic. Further accessibility and availability have been another issue that discourages girl students to obtain an education. In most of the cases, it has been seen that especially in the third world countries like India have relatively less number of public educational institution and for which one has to go far to obtain public education.
The Government of India has initiated the 'Beti Bachao Beti Parhao' scheme in January 2015 that emphasizes girls' enrollment ratio in educational institutions. It addresses the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) and related issues of women empowerment over a life-cycle continuum. It is a tri-ministerial effort of Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health & Family Welfare and Human Resource Development. In terms of encouraging girls' education, especially in the post-Covid era, the policy could have played an important role. But the major question is whether the scheme can make people aware of the importance of girls' education. Will it mitigate the stereotypical gender notion that discourages women to have access to education? Meanwhile, the existence of the scheme has been pertinent during the pandemic situation when girls' education comes at a risk. The Government of India has invested a significant amount in the annual budget from 2015 to 2020. But in the 2021 Budget, there was no special allocation, and that has been clubbed under the Samarthya Yojna Scheme, the scheme that encourages the education of girl students belonging to SC and ST categories. The budget proposals for 2022-23 include no allocation for the National Scheme for Incentive to Girl Child for Secondary Education (NSIGSE), which was started in 2008-09 to promote the enrolment of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe girls in secondary schools and reduce the dropout rate among them. The budget has cut the allocation for the school midday meal scheme, now renamed as PM Poshan from Rs 11,500 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 10,234 crore for 2022-23 — equal to the sum in the revised budget for 2021-22.
It has been observed that the scheme Beti Bachao Beti Pardhao could play a very significant role in preventing dropout rates, especially during the time of the pandemic. It would have been fruitful if the government concentrates on the scheme single handily rather than clubbing it with other schemes. Indian Feminist Kamla Bhasin has rightly pointed out the importance of girls' education and here with the help of her famous quote we hope for better tomorrow, 'Because I am a girl, I must study.