21st Century: Dreams/Expectations
It is just the beginning of the 21st century. I was 11 when it began. There used to be this ad on television: a girl working on a laptop, going out shopping alone, playing video games, wearing modern clothes. I am not sure of ‘Sunehara Badan’, but I always wanted to be that girl- a working woman, fully independent.
Like me, many might have looked forward to the 21st century. I used to think everything would be possible and ALLOWED to a girl in the 21st century. I also thought they call a modern, progressive thinking girl a 21st-century girl. There was a hope of newness, development, breaking barriers, equality for girls and women to some extent. I was happy, too, to see many changes around me: completing my masters without being pressured to get married, my parents accepting the importance of me being financially independent, etc.
A Reality Check
That was only until my masters. Then I opened my eyes to the real world, which was up until now hidden to me. It cracked my bubble upon witnessing so many underprivileged girls struggling to get quality education, out of school, married as soon as they started their menses, spending their days at home working for their family, cooking, cleaning, taking care of everyone around them.
The comparatively privileged (socially, economically, culturally) women were able to be those 21st-century girls- in offices, schools, universities, and together we all were working to bring more girls to this side of life. But suddenly, everything paused; the pandemic struck. It hit all sections of society; women were hit harder.
The Pandemic As A Speed Breaker
Education so far mainly was about going to school, attending classes, exams, and mingling with friends. Now, it all started happening within the boundaries of home, everything online. Due to pandemic constraints, there was limited exposure to nature and social gatherings, which curtailed social development. In India, where girls aren’t allowed to go out, shutting off the only avenue to be out has been tragic.
Millions Of Girls Dropped Out Of School
2021 saw millions of girls dropping out of education for various factors like lack of enough digital resources, poverty, other household chores they were being engaged in. The tools for education- the internet and laptops, which could otherwise be resources, became a huge headache.
Lack of minimum requirements of digital education like personal smartphones, good internet networks, affordable data packs, private spaces to attentively take classes suddenly rendered our well trained and competent teachers/instructors incompetent. We can’t blame them since they were never prepared for online education, digital communication with students, or a pandemic.
The responsibility of children’s education also fell mainly on women, be it mother or elder sister. When the traditional structures built to impart education fell off, teaching young minds became a part of care work. Handling and raising kids now also involves getting children to learn, attend classes, and guide them through lessons, using phones, laptops and the internet.
It affected different girls differently. If you were born into a better-off family, they made sure to buy one mobile for you. But if you were economically weaker, it wasn’t the same. Even if you had access to your father’s phone, you could not spend all of your time on it to learn and explore more. If you have a brother sharing the same device, ‘naturally,’ he would get it for a longer time than you do. According to a study conducted by CBPS, only 30% of the surveyed children had access to a smartphone, of which 26% were girls compared to 37% boys.
Some also believed firmly that smartphones spoil girls, and a smartphone might create an opportunity for her to fall in love with someone and elope. Preservation of the perceived caste pride was more important than her education or even her freedom to feel the natural feelings of love, romance, or even friendships.
Social gatherings, peer learning are as important for the cognitive development of teenagers as they are for children. Gossips are one of the best mediums to learn about the world through peers. However, gossiping about sensitive issues around topics like boyfriends, changing bodies, menses with the help of phones is not possible if others could look into your unlocked phone chats, and homes don’t provide enough privacy to speak about such matters.
Here are some of the pressing concerns regarding girls’ education:
- Through December 2020, the income of salaried workers fell by 35%, while that of daily labourers fell by 75%. When income goes down, a girl is the first to be pulled out of the education system, online or offline.
- With various schemes and legislations like the Right to Education, we brought down dropout rates of girls aged 15-16 to 13.5% in 2018 from over 20% in 2008. However, according to Harvard Political Review, estimates show the pandemic could cause 10 million secondary school girls’ dropouts.
- And I foresee most of them would be from the marginalized communities because the average annual dropout rate for ST/SC and Muslim girls has always been high along with low gross enrolment rate; pandemic would worsen the same.
Child Marriages Increased
Seeing a girl at home 24/7 made some parents marry them off early. With limited guests allowed, the silver lining was all the savings. The unexpected burden of marriage, lack of awareness of contraceptives and physical closeness ‘blessed’ many adolescents and newly married with babies already, when they aren’t even prepared to take care of themselves. Many of them were studying in schools and universities or preparing for competitive exams for higher education/jobs, and all such prospects got shattered.
As stated by UNICEF, in the last ten years, the global proportion of young women married as children had decreased by 15%, again that is under threat now because of the pandemic, putting another 10 million at the risk of child marriage.
The Progress Rolled Back
Because of the pandemic, I could see more men rather than women with masks out to shop. It was a rare sight to see a girl buying groceries or vegetables. Pandemic rolled back the progress we have been trying to make for years.
We (our institutions) were never prepared for this pandemic, its nature and the lockdowns. Most educational spaces were designed for normal times, and so were ways to help girls continue their education.
It made us introspect on how we were working on for so long. People learned new skills and became more tech-savvy. However, the gender divide widened threefolds. There is no count on how many dreams the pandemic shattered. A girl in Kerala died by suicide because she had no smartphone to attend the online classes, and her father couldn’t afford one. There is no count on how many girls were made child brides and how many regularly face marital rape, domestic violence, or abuse. And the list goes on.
The Schools Are Reopening, Is It Too Late?
Towards the end of 2021, many states have reopened the schools. But is it too late for those girls who might not come back, ever? So far, I haven’t seen any new program/policy to bring those girls back to schools or any budget addressing the gendered digital divide, which could help these girls reclaim their right to education back. There needs to be a fully dedicated nationwide program on identifying, locating and bringing back girls to school in a manner that also makes up for the lost learnings, and opens up better opportunities that can be integrated into mainstream education, thus providing better solutions and programs for all.