Trisha, my next-door neighbour’s maidservant, studies in class 11. Owing to the sudden pandemic gloom, she sadly reflects, “Covid has spoilt everything. How long will we survive on some rice and salt?” During this pandemic, she has started to take up the work of mopping and cleaning at other people’s houses, with a meagre salary of ₹950 a month per house. But due to the pandemic, domestic work is also hard to come by.
In a disheartened tone, she says, “After two months, I have to clear my school fees. They (the employers) think we are spreading corona, so many have refused to take me in for work.” Not only is she discriminated against as a virus carrier, something a lot of domestic workers have had to face, but the catastrophe also lies in the fact that she hardly manages to earn ₹2000 per month. Her school fees amount to ₹1800 for three months. You do the math!
To add to her plight, her mother (also a domestic worker) has tested positive for Covid and cannot go to work. Thus, Trisha has to take care of herself and her entire family with the added costs of procuring expensive medicines for her mother.
With the already problematic situation of girls’ education in India, the pandemic is creating an even more challenging level to overcome. Neither the government school fees nor the private school fees have been figured out well for the girls (primarily from the marginalized sections). By and by, in this dangerous condition, online classrooms have created even more panic. With the desperation to educate at least one child of the family, the families choose their boys over their girls. After all, society views a boy’s education as more profitable than a girl’s education.
According to a report by RTE Forum, more than ten million girls at risk of dropping out of school because of the pandemic. “There are reports that women’s equality could be pushed back up to by ten years by the pandemic.” Hence, it is imperative to ask, when will the situation of girls’ education be stabilized, if at all it is going to be?
The obvious question concerning the real pandemic situation is, how exactly is the fee structure posing an issue for the girl? Well, even amidst the looming concerns of the Covid-19 virus and with the third wave allegedly on the horizon, the Supreme Court has put the parents in more troubled waters. They had ordered the parents “to pay 100% school fee during a pandemic period.”
Being in class 10, Deepti enrolled in a private school. After all, we view private schools as pioneers of education in India. With her father having lost his job at a petrol pump, she is left unsupported to gaze at her bleak future.
On asking about her coping mechanism with the present scenario, she said, “I just have to pass my Class 10 somehow with the leftover savings. Perhaps, once the pandemic subsides, I might think of enrolling in Class 11. You see, baba is still not getting a job and with no adequate access to a smartphone-” She could not continue the conversation due to a heavy sigh and her grief over her lost dreams.
With the already meagre education for the girls, dropping out of school has become a daily phenomenon in this arduous situation. Likewise, with the prevailing economic shocks in the family, the girls are also being forced to take up the household chores and the burden of earning for the family.
The agony of the girls has piled up even more and, at times, has reached unthinkable consequences. “Despite repeated knocks, there was no response, so we broke the door latch to find her hanging by a rope.” In Telangana, a girl of Class 10 allegedly committed suicide since her daily wage earner parents could not deposit ₹3000 as the school fee. The present scenario of the girls’ education in both the private and the government schools is miserable. It is high time that the government helps the girls earn their long due right to education with dignity and ease.
The author is a Kaksha Correspondent as a part of writers’ training program under Kaksha Crisis.