Unintended consequences of youth entrepreneurship programs. Experimental evidence from Rwanda, working paper
This working paper evaluates the effect of student economic outcomes of an entrepreneurship education reform in Rwanda.
Abstract
The working paper evaluates the effect of student economic outcomes of an entrepreneurship education reform in Rwanda. A survey was conducted in 200 secondary schools in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021 to examine the entrepreneurship programs designed and supervised by Educate!, an international NGO. The primary focus is assessing student outcomes one to 3 years after completing secondary school, providing insights into the effectiveness and long-term impact of the program, which commenced three to five years before the evaluation. The surveys asked respondents to report their academic and economic activities in recent months.
The study evaluates a teacher training intervention focussed on the effective implementation of the new curriculum through a randomized controlled trial. The student surveys collected data about secondary school persistence, entrepreneurship exam scores and non-cognitive skills. The analysis compares the treatment and control groups and reports the differences in means and significance levels. Among the teachers, program take-up was high leading to pedagogical changes aligned with the revised curriculum.
This research is part of the Gender, Growth and Labour Markets in Low Income Countries programme
Citation
Blimpo, M., and Pugatch, T. Unintended Consequences of Youth Entrepreneurship Programs. Experimental Evidence from Rwanda. G2LM LIC Working Paper No. 77, 2023