Entrepreneurship Education in Uganda: A Randomized Control Trial

The “Educate! Experience” program, implemented during the 2012-2013 school year, is developed around the theory of change detailed below:

Problem
Many Ugandan youth:
- Lack access to high-quality, student-centered education
- Lack the income, skills and resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods
- Are not meaningfully engaged in the civil, social and cultural life in their communities and are not so motivated to do so
- Have poor psychosocial adjustment

Target population
Ugandan Secondary School Students (Senior 5 and Senior 6)

Inputs
- Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership Course
Approximately 45 hours of instruction in English focused on developing socially responsible leadership skills, business/entrepreneurship skills, community awareness/engagement and group and individual ‘personal projects’ such as community initiatives and businesses.
- One-to-one and Group Mentoring sessions
Mentorship has a target minimum of 75 minutes per students – 15 minutes once per term; there is approximately 7 hours for group mentorship. These sessions focus on the personal development of the scholars enrolled in the SELC and are an opportunity to build supportive relationships between the mentors and scholars.
- Student business club (SBC)
4 hours of workshops, undefined number of SBC meetings. The SBC focus on business development and meant to help students design projects that generate income. SBC members are responsible for developing and managing the club projects with the guidance of the Educate! mentor.

Outputs
- Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership Course Attendance
Students complete Entrepreneurship and Leadership Course (Target: 80%)
- Mentorship received
Students have been mentored at least 75 minutes (minimum 1 time per term for 15 minutes)
- Participation in Student Business Club
Students have actively participated in SBC and have created a small-business as a group project

Outcomes
- Leadership
Student feels responsibility for improving their communities and their own well-being
- Community Engagement
Student has increased concern for their community/takes action based on this concern
- Business Planning
Student has improved business / financial skills
- Enterprise Development
Student has started their own business
- Psychosocial development
Student has improved psychosocial adjustment

2012-08-01

2013-06-01

Based on the theory of change, the evaluation is designed to test the following hypotheses:

3.2.1 Participation in Educate!’s programs will improve participants’ skills, specifically:
- Practical business skills such as business planning, management, basic accounting and finance, and basic financial literacy including savings behavior and use if financial institutions
- Soft skills such as negotiation, commutation and persuasion, creativity, patience, and self-efficacy

3.2.2 Participation in Educate!’s programs will improve participants’ economic outcomes, specifically:
- Entrepreneurial success including starting businesses, investing in and expanding business, and business income of the self-employed
- Wages of those working for others (Educate! may not necessarily increase wage sector employment, but rather cause a substitution away from wage sector employment to self-employment)
- Total income from all sources

3.2.3 Participation in Educate!’s programs will improve participants’ participation and leadership in community organizations and projects, political organizations and activities, and school activities.

3.2.4 Participation in Educate!’s programs will lead to improvement in the lives of women in terms of:
- Economic outcomes
- Reduced or better timed fertility
- Reduced victimization from criminal activity and domestic abuse

The study design will help us to assess the impact on the hypotheses described in the theory of change. We use data generated from a cluster randomized control trial where the unit of analysis will be the individual student.

We want to include all study participants regardless of whether or not they completed the program. Our estimates will use an intent to treatment (ITT) estimate of impact. ITT estimates measure the difference in outcomes between those assigned to the treatment group and those assigned to the comparison group, irrespective of whether participants assigned to either group actually receive the treatment.

We will then use the random assignment as an instrumental variable for completing the program to obtain the local average treatment effect (LATE). LATE is the impact of the program estimated for a specific subset of the population, such as those that comply with their assignment to the treatment. Thus the LATE provides only a local estimate of the program impact and should not be generalized to the entire population.

Randomized on a computer

School level

Yes

48 schools

The sample size intended to be 45 students x 48 schools = 2160 students. The baseline sample included 1916 students because (i) some schools did not actually have the required 45 students in their S5 course and (ii) due to attrition. Please note that all students were administered a short survey in which they had to indicate that they were interested in participating in a leadership and entrepreneurship course and that they had the time to commit to this type of course. Students were assigned a score based on the survey and the top 45 students were selected to be in either the treatment or control group.

24 schools treatment
24 schools control

The final sample size includes 48 schools and 1916 students, of which 944 from the 24 schools are the treatment group and 972 from the 24 school are in the control groups. Using the data from the 2012 baseline survey of study participants, the average MDES of the outcomes of interest is 0.228 standard deviations, and rises to 0.326 standard deviations for gender specific analyses, due to the decreased sample size.