E-MENTORING AS A TOOL TO REDUCE GENDER DISPARITY IN EDUCATION, POSTCOVID 2019.

“Let’s give tomorrow women better choices than the one we have faced past this year”.
Sustainable Development Goals (4) aim to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. The
goals also put emphasis on reducing gender disparity and empowering all to lead a life of dignity. Education for
sustainable development is an effective and only tool for countries like India which aims to achieve SDG goals
especially for empowering girls. Although India has performed well in achieving UPE, yet the problem of USE
remain a dream especially among adolescence girls. Secondary education in general is a time of gross upheaval
in the life of girls especially in relation to their studies and education.Getting educated or pursuing education at
this stage becomes a dream for many. The onslaught of Covid-19 helped in expanding this gap further. School
closure during covid-19 affected 1.6 billion learners which posed an alarming threat to gender disparity
(UNESCO-2030). Girls are more at risk of losing out because they are discriminated against in terms of access
to technology, time, household chores, child marriage, sexual exploitation and other related issues. Hence it
becomes imperative that girls are provided with strategies and solutions to mitigate this loss of learning. This
paper focuses on the use of E-mentoring as a strategy to deal with above crisis and to mitigate the challenges
posed by Covid-19 on girl’s education. Keeping in mind the challenges and limitations posed by Covid -19 on
education of girls Mentoring could be a step forward. Not only in On-line mode but also when school reopens.
This would also be helpful for those who could not access education from formal means.
E-mentoring is a new context where the mentoring process between the mentor and protégé operates through
online processes. E-Mentoring can be operated through three different modes keeping the means and context
of the mentor and mentored in view. It could be fully virtual, blended or face to face. The mentors through
E-Mentoring shall not only provide academic support but also emotional and social support to these girls.
Hence this paper shall focus on E mentoring as atool to bridge gender gap in education especially in the post
Covid phase