Working for many years on Demographic and Health Issues, Education is chosen for its linkages with Demography and Health. After getting familiar with Citizen-Led-Assessments (CLAs) by serving one year at Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan, the PAL Network Fellowship was a platform for me to improve my quantitative research and gain global perspective on matters education. Moreover, working in a developing country outside Asia was one of my dreams that came true through the Fellowship.
Exploring under-studied social issues related to children has been my focus. My work on investigating disparities in learning outcomes of out-of-school vs in-school children brings new evidence about learning outcomes of under explored out-of-school children. The study highlights that, it is mother’s education, household learning environment, gender and household wealth status where disparities in reading and numeracy outcomes are significant. It puts light on important issues that need solutions for having better aggregated estimates of learning outcomes. The study also sheds light on significance of minimum proficiency that is under discussion and recognized as baseline to measure learning outcomes around the globe. I hope my research will spur discussion among policy makers and global partners working on solutions of determining minimum proficiency levels of reading and numeracy and understanding dynamics of out-of-school children.
The Fellowship program was reinforced with technical support from experts across the network. The interactions sharpened my data analysis, report writing and communication skills.
I found my weaknesses and ways to improve quality of my research work. It was a big evolutionary research process for me to build my research capacity. The first weeks of the fellowship program were not easy, having had to move to a different country from my motherland. I was however made to feel at home by the people of Nairobi. I found office colleagues and the other people I came across approachable and interactive, enabling me to fit easily within the new environment.
The Fellowship was punctuated with lots of adventures in Kenya. My visit to the Maasai market was exciting. I walked the entire market admiring the traditional African items, finding it difficult to make a choice.
The Easter holidays gave me a chance to explore Kenya, a welcomed break after being deeply engrossed in the research work. Joined by other two fellows and some staff, we went on safari to the Maasai Mara National Park where we enjoyed the game drive, a global spectacular. Moreover, we got chance to visit the Elephant Orphanage, the Giraffe Centre, Marine Park in Malindi and the Lake Victoria in Kisumu.
Every moment spent in the Fellowship was memorable as most experiences were totally new to me. The colleagues at the office were with us throughout the experience, being a group of talented and hardworking people. Besides enjoying these stuff, I tremendously improved in my professional front.