Implementing institution: Educate!
Country: Uganda
Source: CEI
Execution period: 2009 - in progress
Plataforma de Prácticas Efectivas:
To support high school students in their transition to the professional world, transforming them into leaders and entrepreneurs with a view to reducing poverty levels in the country.
Reinforcement program and individualized tutoring to promote entrepreneurship and leadership.
Upon graduation from the program, participants earn an average annual income twice as much as non-participants (US$ 338 vs. US$ 165, respectively). The increase is even greater for women (+120%).
The Educate! program was launched in 2009 through 24 pilot projects spread over 4 districts in Uganda. In order to reach the target groups, the NGO Educate! fosters strategic alliances with public secondary schools. The program has several sponsors, including the Segal Family Foundation, the Barr Foundation and the Halloran Philanthropies.
Educate! consists of 18-month individualized tutorials on creating and developing a business plan, business management, and leadership. The methodology emphasizes experiential learning in order to empower students. To ensure good performance, Educate! is implemented during the last two years of high school.
In the first instance, students pass a competency test in order to be selected. After entering, they attend weekly courses at school offered by an associate professor. He/she presents cases of good practice in entrepreneurship and invites students to exchange their views on the subject. The courses are complemented by individualized tutoring sessions after class timetables to reinforce the knowledge acquired, applying it to a project designed by the student. To do this, a tutor (“Educate! Mentor”) assists students.
Many of the mentors are ex-program beneficiaries, coming from local communities, where they have developed their own business. That is why Educate! is considered to be a program run by young people for young people. The NGO also organizes tutors’ meetings during the year (“Youth Business Experience”) so that they can exchange their experiences, receive training, find and create alliances with other organizations and thus develop their own business. Recently, SMS applications and systems have been developed so that mentors and teachers have quick and effective access to the news of the network of collaborators. After three years of implementation, the Ugandan government has integrated the Educate! program into the traditional curriculum. The program has reached more than 240,000 students in Uganda and Rwanda, creating some 400 partnerships with secondary schools.
In Uganda, young people account for almost half the number of unemployed, while those who are employed work mostly in informal jobs characterized by low income and instability. In 2002, the Ugandan government announced that courses in entrepreneurship would be integrated into the official secondary curriculum. However, in 2012, President Yoweri Museveni said the project remains “ineffective”.
In 2012, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) conducted an impact assessment in the form of an experimental study with a control group. 48 schools were randomly selected in Uganda, half received the program while the other half did not. The baseline study was conducted in 2012 using semi-structured interviews and has included all participants. A year later, a second round of interviews showed an improvement in terms of the students’ entrepreneurial culture, as well as their income, community involvement, leadership and soft skills.
With an average cost of US$ 125 per student per year, the program has a very high cost-effectiveness ratio in the sense that it allows for a 105% increase in student income on average. This result is even higher for women (+120%). 64% of the interviewees have shown a greater culture of entrepreneurship than their peers in the control group and 94% of the graduates of the program have their own business or have entered University.
Considering the relatively low cost of the program, as well as its ability to include community members, it represents a very timely methodology in countries with high youth unemployment rates.
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