Between 2012 and 2016, Educate! greatly expanded its scale from about 50 schools in 2012 to almost 400 in 2016. Despite positive results from our 2012-2013 RCT, we felt we needed an updated estimate of our program’s impact at scale. This second evaluation would provide the evidence to give us confidence as we continue to move towards our vision of measurably impacting one million youth across East Africa by 2024. In 2016, Educate! partnered with BRAC’s Independent Research and Evaluation Cell to conduct a quasi-experimental evaluation of the Educate! Experience program to assess the program’s impact at scale. The evaluation combined a propensity score matching (PSM) design with a difference-in-differences analysis. This evaluation (called “PSM” below) found that youth who participated in Educate!’s program performed higher than non-participants in the comparison group in all three of Educate!’s core economic outcomes.
The following discussion provides an overview of these findings, and their significance to Educate! as we continue our work in skills-based education.