“This is not what I thought my life would be”: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Girls’ Education in an Unauthorised Colony in Delhi

Yamini Agarwal | pp. 35-61

Abstract  :
This paper engages with the multiple and myriad consequences of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the education of girls in an unauthorised neighbourhood in Delhi. Mostly first-generation learners in their families, these girls have already had
precarious educational journeys given their location in a neighbourhood with structural disadvantages in education and their own poor economic and social capital. This paper shows the various negative impacts on their education following the first school closure in
2020 until 2023, when the study that this paper is drawn from was concluded. Apart from what is largely being looked at as learning loss, this paper shows the many ramifications of school closures—quitting education, early marriages, and shifting of aspirations—for
these young girls. I argue that the pandemic has once again raised concerns for the growing disparities in education for the disadvantaged, especially girls, and created new forms of marginalities in education that can be addressed by strengthening the public
education system on which they largely depend.

Keywords: Gender, school education, urban marginality, aspirations, pandemic