Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary This study assesses, via a field experiment, how a comprehensive teacher training program affects the delivery of a major entrepreneurship curriculum reform in Rwanda. The reform introduced interactive pedagogy and a focus on business skills in the country’s required upper secondary entrepreneurship course. Both groups received the government’s standard training. In addition, the treatment group was assigned intensive training organized by an NGO for two years. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>This study assesses, via a field experiment, how a comprehensive teacher training program affects the delivery of a major entrepreneurship curriculum reform in Rwanda. The reform introduced interactive pedagogy and a focus on business skills in the country’s required upper secondary entrepreneurship course. Both groups received the government’s standard training. In addition, the treatment group was assigned intensive training organized by an NGO for two years. The training consisted of (i) six training sessions during school breaks, ii) exchange visits each term where teachers provided feedback to their peers, and (iii) outreach and support from NGO staff at least twice per year. The control group received only the default government training, which was not specific to entrepreneurship and lacked each of these elements. The program increased teachers’ use of active instruction, consistent with the reform’s features. These effects on pedagogy did not translate into improvements in student academic outcomes or skills. While still in secondary school, treated students increased participation in their own businesses by 5 percentage points, or 17% of the control mean. Wage employment (at others’ firms) declined by a commensurate amount in response to treatment, leaving no effect on overall income. These results suggest substitution between entrepreneurship and employment among students in treated schools.</p> <p>A longer-term follow-up to this trial can be found <a href="https://www.innovationgrowthlab.org/content/unintended-consequences-youth-entrepreneurship-programs-experimental-evidence-rwanda">here</a>.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102583 Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question How effective is comprehensive teacher training in changing teacher pedagogy, building student entrepreneurial skills, and promoting student economic activity Sample Trial population and sample selection The sample frame included 211 schools, spread across 11 districts in 3 of Rwanda’s 5 provinces. . Four schools refused to participate in the study, leaving 103 treatment and 104 control schools. Additionally, a miscommunication between the research team and project implementers led to one control school receiving the intervention, while two treatment schools did not receive the intervention. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Schools were randomly selected to receive intensive in-service teacher training on the entrepreneurship curriculum over two years. The training includes 10 days of teacher workshops spread throughout each year of the two year intervention, and a one-day administration workshop each year for two years. The control group was constituted by a second set of schools participating in the new entrepreneurship curriculum without intensive training in the entrepreneurship curriculum. A subset (about 15%) of teachers in control schools will participate in a 5-day general orientation on changes in the broader curriculum. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method The baseline survey occurred at the beginning of the 2016 academic year, where the head teacher, the entrepreneurship teacher, and randomly selected student were surveyed. The surveys covered school characteristics, perceptions of effective teaching practices, demographics, student labor market and economic activity, entrepreneurship knowledge, and non-cognitive skills Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Income, employment, business creation, cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills of students partecipating in the program</p> Results <p>The teacher training moved entrepreneurship teaching practices towards more interactive and student-centered techniques. Use of group discussions, research, case studies, debates and role playing increased by 6 percentage points (from 32% to 38%) and scheduled “skills labs” six-fold. Did not change overall active instruction time, but teachers moved active learning activities from the first half to the second half of the class, as recommended during the training. The change in teaching practises did not translate into higher entrepreneurship knowledge or better exam scores for students, nor in entrepreneurship specific exams. Students’ non-cognitive skills were unaffected, including educational and professional aspirations, grit, and locus of control. Students whose teachers were trained were 5 percentage points more likely (from 30% to 35%) to participate in revenue-generating businesses, mainly through “Student Business Clubs”. But also less likely to have wage-employment by a similar amount, leaving overall income unaffected.</p> Intervention costs The intervention cost US$71 per student over the three years of the program. The program increased business participation by 5 percentage points. In other words, an average of 20 student beneficiaries was induced to generate one additional business at endline relative to the control group. The cost of generating additional business was therefore US$473 per year. Cost benefit ratio Reference Blimpo, M.P. and Pugatch, T., 2019. Entrepreneurship education and teacher training in Rwanda. Journal of Development Economics, 140, pp.186-202. Citation for use in academic references
