Innovative Secondary Education For Skills Enhancement

at schools within the existing school system. Educate!
currently has a diverse mix of about 52 partner schools
located across the country, and includes religious, public,
and private schools. About 30 students are selected from
each school based on their commitment and motivation.
Mentors are recent graduates from local universities who
receive training before being placed at partner schools.
Each mentor works directly with students to help build
non-cognitive skills such as self-confidence, communication,
and leadership. The mentors also teach a more
formal, two-year entrepreneurship and leadership course
to students, where practical business skills are developed.
Scholars continue to receive mentorship and guidance
after they graduate, and Educate! has developed a strong
alumni program that sustains ties between the mentors
and scholars.
Approach. The program is unique in that it focuses on
both non-cognitive and practical skills, and the curriculum
emphasizes experiential learning (youth are encouraged to
develop and “test” an enterprise in their community). The
emphasis is to provide youth with a relevant skill set to
become leaders and to empower them to reach out and influence
others. Although not all students go on to become
entrepreneurs after they graduate from secondary school,
the mentorship and business knowledge they receive are
likely to be assets as they seek employment. Educate! has
also developed a Teaching as Mentorship program to help
teachers and administrators at partner schools further support
youth and entrepreneurs. The organization believes
that this in-school support is necessary for the sustainability
and effectiveness of its programs.
Impact and Scale. With the support of the Ugandan
government and the International Labour Organization,
Educate!’s entrepreneurship curriculum has now been
integrated into Uganda’s national entrepreneurship curriculum.
The ultimate goal is to reach 100,000 youth and
scale up to all 1,000 schools offering entrepreneurship in
the country. The 2010 annual report notes that to date,
the Educate!-supported youth have started 284 enterprises
that have earned thousands of dollars in revenue and have
created more than 50 jobs. Educate! has received numerous
accolades: recognitions include being a winner in the
2009 Hewlett Foundation’s Champions of Quality Education
in Africa competition, and its founder, Eric Glustrom,
was a 2009 Echoing Green Fellow.
Educate! is now working to analyze its impact and
measure its cost-effectiveness, with assistance from the
Youth Employment Network. Given that Uganda has
adopted the social entrepreneurship curriculum nationally,
the ongoing impact assessment will be able to showcase
the value of the full Educate! program, by comparing the
impact at schools where both the mentor and curriculum
exists against schools that are only implementing the curriculum.
Such data will allow the organization to accurately
calculate the impact and effectiveness of its mentors.
Replication. The Educate! model has already been
adapted and replicated by AfricAid’s Kisa Project in
Tanzania, and Educate!’s goal is to one day expand its
model to other neighboring countries such as Kenya and
Rwanda. Successful replication of the model will depend
on the ability to adapt the curriculum to the local language
and culture, while taking the structure of the education
system into account. In Uganda, the national curriculum
is standardized, and so it was relatively easy to scale up
the model across the country. Additionally, Educate! was
fortunate to be able to gain the support of several stakeholders
and ensure that the government was a key ally;
this external stakeholder support will likely also be crucial
for success in other countries.
Innovative Models for Skills Enhancement in Africa and Asia 43