In sub-Saharan Africa, where youth unemployment rates are very high, teaching students the skills required to be successful entrepreneurs or to compete in the formal labor market has the potential to reduce youth unemployment, drive economic growth, and reduce poverty. Whether such skills – particularly soft skills – can be taught, however, is an open question. In Uganda, researchers partnered with Educate! and IPA to evaluate the impact of the Educate! Experience program, a leadership and entrepreneurship skill development program for secondary school students. Four years after the intervention, graduates’ soft skills improved relative to non-graduates, while impacts on hard skills were more limited. Participants were more likely to have graduated from secondary school and female graduates were also more likely to be enrolled in or to have completed tertiary education. In addition, Educate! graduates reported having fewer sexual partners, being less sexually active, and waiting longer to start a family than non-graduates. They also expressed reduced social acceptability of violence and reported fewer threats of and lower incidence of physical violence. These results are preliminary; final results are forthcoming.
