Reflective Paper

Name: Fatima Iftikhar

Topic: Poverty and Inequality

Issue: Inequality in the education system

Strengths and weaknesses of my own work:-

Strengths:
While selecting the topic and issue of our group project, I researched
different issues that could come under each topic included in our
curriculum. Spending time on the internet to learn more made it easier to
choose a topic and issue. A few articles also helped me explore different
global perspectives, for example an article about inequality in
educational systems in Ireland (Gerry Jeffery & Carmel Lillis 2019).
Secondly, during the execution of our proposal, I asked for different tips,
techniques and add ons for the arts segment of our project from my
mother-a professional artist, teacher and practitioner- which really
cleared up a lot of things. This made it easier to design the curriculum
and activities for arts. I was made incharge of the art part, hence I tried
my level best contacting different practising artists who might have
carried out or been a part of similar workshops, or internships.
Moreover, I went through different surveys online which targeted the
issue revolving inequality in the educational system to get an idea for the
types of questions we could add in our survey. After many changes, we
finally got it approved from our teacher and got 162 responses in total.
For another component of the execution of our project, the interviews, I
constantly pushed my fellow project mates to carry them out as we were
running out of time. I also approached many of the teachers to explain to
them what our project was about and to ask them if they were willing to
give us an interview. During our GP classes and online meetings related
to the project, I tried to keep the group together by focusing on what
work we had to do so that we could waste less time. While we were
having trouble finding a school or organisation to work with, I worked
very hard to find one. For almost 2 weeks, I called and visited different
schools and organisations which I thought might be down to let us work
with them.

Weaknesses:
If I had spent more time on researching our topic, I believe it would have
been easier to plan and schedule our execution of the project and we
would have been done with most of it by now. I took an off from school
the day we had planned to conduct the interviews, which is why we
could not conduct them on time. I also believe if I had spent more time
working on the schedule and would have tried contacting more
organisations, instead of waiting for the first one to respond, we would
have been done with most of the part of our project by now. Adding on,
If I invested a tad more effort into getting more people to fill our survey,
we would have gotten more responses. In my opinion, I should be more
punctual while managing tasks. I should also work on my time
management skills. I also think that I panic easily, which gets quite
overwhelming at times because I tend to waste time, stressing over the
amount of work I have to do instead of actually doing it.

Benefits and challenges of your own performance as a team

member:-

Benefits:-
Being an art student myself, it made it easier to design the course for arts
and crafts. I think I am quite collaborative and open to ideas which made
me easier to work with. I believe that on days when things were a bit too
overwhelming, I would try to lighten up everyone’s moods by cracking
jokes and being hopeful. I see myself as a very enthusiastic person,
hence I think I can be fun to work with.

Challenges:
Whenever we had to face a problem, I would get a bit too expressive,
which made things a bit more problematic. One weakness of mine is that
when I present an idea and no one takes it into consideration, it frustrates
me. Or when I’m working hard on something and someone criticises me,
I just lose the motivation to work. Even though I am a very lively
person, I have a short temper and can get annoyed easily. All of these
things might be a bit problematic to my team members, but I’m actively
trying to work on them.

Benefits and challenges of working as a team:-

Benefits:
While we were making our survey form, all of us contributed to the
questions. Abbas, Ayesha and I are reasonably good at forming
questions and phrasing things. Fatima Junaid is very full of life and
ecstatic, which is why she manages to remain calm and lighten up
stressful situations. When we had to get people to fill our survey,
Ahmed’s social skills really helped a lot. As a team, we all have our own
traits which really contributed to our project as a whole.

Challenges:
Although, there are pros and cons to everything. Due to convenience
issues, we were not able to have proper meetings over our project as
both the guys were in a different campus and working online was quite a
hassle. When our school admin and teacher initiated a solution to the
problem, the guys would come over to our school and things became a
tad easier as we were finally meeting. Although we still had timing
issues because by the time the guys would arrive at our school, half of
the class time would have been passed. This was one of the major
reasons why we couldn’t carry out our project execution on time.

Our Outcome:
The purpose is to help children from underprivileged schools who
subsequently have had a lack of exposure to extracurriculars and in the
due process not been given an opportunity to develop skills and become
aware of basic things.
Our focus is in helping them learn:
● Communication skill
● Arts and crafts
These skills will help them in their later lives and they can pass on their
knowledge and skills to other children as well.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Our Outcome:

Our outcome did not really turn out the way we wanted it to. Due to less
time, we had to carry out our project in our own school. However, the
purpose of our project was still achieved directly or indirectly. The
students of our school were told to pass on what they learnt, to their
domestic workers, hence fulfilling our purpose. Even though the
outcome did not go as we wanted it to, we did end up learning that
things don’t always go the way we want them to.

What I Learnt From Different Cultural Perspectives?

Each community has its own culture. In different parts of Pakistan,
people do not prioritise education for women as they believe that women
are supposed to only cook, clean and take care of their kids. However,
people in some modernised areas are of the idea that women have equal
rights to education as generations depend on their morals and literacy.
Estimates show that rural areas have a literacy rate of 28.3 percent,
while urban areas have a literacy rate of 58.3 percent with only 12
percent of rural women being literate. (Faheem, 2022) Additionally, lack
of funding from the government, unsafe transportation, early marriages
and poverty also contribute to the high illiteracy rates in Pakistan.
(Jessica 2020)

Overall learning:
Working on this project has given me an opportunity to improve my
rights and work on my wrongs. It has given me exposure and has been a
great experience as a whole. It allowed me to reflect on my strengths and
weaknesses and helped me develop leadership skills.

A few websites I used to research over our project:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1071441940160203?journ
alCode=gred20
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245937
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-educat
ion/
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2022/02/27/gender-inequality-in-edu
cation/#:~:text=Pakistan's%20entire%20education%20system%20has,8.
3%20percent%20attended%20tertiary%20education.
https://borgenproject.org/education-inequality-in-pakistan/