Educate!

LocationUganda
SectorEducation
Type of investmentGrant
Project stageTest & Transition

A $300,000 grant to support the testing, expansion, and government adoption of a skills-based educational programme in Uganda and Rwanda with an innovation curriculum of training, mentorship and clubs.

75%

Amount of the population under 30 years of age in Uganda

120,000

Number of students Educate! has reached in Uganda

The development problem

Youth unemployment remains a serious challenge in sub Saharan Africa, where young people are twice as likely to be unemployed as any other age cohort. In Uganda, where 75 percent of the population are younger than 30 years of age, the vast majority of young people are engaged in low-quality informal jobs with limited job security and low earnings.

The innovation

Educate! is testing an innovation that aims to transform education in Africa to teach youth to solve poverty for themselves and their communities. Educate! provides youth with leadership, entrepreneurship and workforce readiness skills training and mentorship to start real businesses at school through practically trained teachers and youth mentors. Their goal is to make this practical, skills-based model part of national education systems.

GIF’s Investment

GIF’s $300,000 grant will enable Educate! to further test and refine its model at scale in Uganda and expand into Rwanda while the organization awaits final RCT results.

Why we invested

Commitment to evidence and potential for cost-effective impact. Educate! partnered with Innovations for Poverty Action on the baseline of a randomized controlled trial. Mid-line RCT results show that Educate! graduates earn more than twice as much as their peers soon after they finish the programme. Results from this evaluation will help Educate! make decisions about how to grow and strengthen their program, and will help other donors and governments assess and develop strategies for helping youth thrive.

Track record of growth. Educate! has grown its scale and is now working in 12% (350) of secondary schools in Uganda and reaching over 120,000 students. Educate!’s ten year vision is to reach one million youth annually across ten countries in Africa.

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