NIGERIA Impact of IT Training on Youth Employment Mr. Y.S. Labaran, Mr. F.O. Bajowa, Mr. Hamza Bello, Mrs. Yemisi Joel-Osebor

Nigeria needs more jobs  Nigeria needs more jobs, especially among the young population  1 in 10 new entrants to labor force find formal sector jobs  30% of workforce inactive  Less than 9% formal employment  50% of year olds unemployed

Title INTERVENTION DESCRIPTION What is the intervention? Intervention: IT training for secondary school graduates to work in offshore call centers. Motivation: 1. Business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry growing 25-30% a year 2. India receives same amount per year ($50 Billion) from IT-enabled services as Nigeria does from oil 3. Building IT infrastructure is large part of GEMs project

Intervention is part of a larger project  GEMS (Growth & Employment in States)  Construction and real estate  Meat and leather  ICT Broadband connectivity Management and vocational skills Access to finance ICT parks

Title EVALUATION QUESTIONS Evaluation questions of interest  Can IT training of youth facilitate their employment and improve their earnings?  What do they do with any increased earnings?  What effects does this have within the household?  Does this make youth financially independent from their parents?  Does it change transfers and borrowing behavior?  Does it change their activities during leisure time?  Does the impact differ by gender?

Title EVALUATION DESIGN More background  Accreditation of IT training centres is a part of the GEMS project  6 centres expected to be accredited very soon  Each center can accommodate approximately 300 students per year  18 week course  Ultimate goal: Up to 100,000 students trained  Trying to train 100,000 wae

Title EVALUATION DESIGN Evaluation design  3 options: 1. Pure lottery after meeting basic eligibility criteria secondary school graduate proficiency in English willingness to pay $500 fee, $250 returned upon successful graduation Also need to experiment with subsidies to see if the fees exclude too many poor, high-potential people. to train,000 wae

Evaluation design 2. Regression discontinuity design: Centers administer an aptitude test and set a cut-off mark. Everyone above cut-off gets the training. Compare those just to the left of the cut-off mark to those just to the right. Blue line: Cut-off mark

Evaluation design 2. Regression discontinuity design: This depends on how many students fall within the brackets. If there are too few students……… Blue line: Cut-off mark

Evaluation design 3. Lottery above cut-off mark: randomly choose students who score above the cut-off mark. Those not chosen get a slot in the following year. Blue line: Cut-off mark Random selection among applicants above cut-off

Title SAMPLING AND DATA Data and sampling  Data  Online survey of all applicants in both treatment and comparison groups  Sample among all of these for a face-to-face survey  Aiming to interview 1,000 treated and 1,000 comparison students across 6 training centres by end of 1 year of training. 2,000 interviewed by web survey (with voucher as compensation) 1,000 interviewed in household

Title TIMELINE FOR IMPACT EVALUATION Timeline  Need to wait for centres to be accredited and for them to finish training a few batches  This should be finished byAugust Advertising and recruitment of applicants [2 months] 2. (Aptitude test) 3. Baseline surveys [1 month; could happen at registration] 4. Random assignment (if necessary) 5. Announcement of selection 6. Training [18 weeks per stream] 7. Endline surveys [6 months after end of program]

Title IMPACT EVALUATION TEAM: STAFFING Staffing  Main project coordinator  Make sure initial recruitment and screening occurs  Main liaison with training centres  Conduct lottery (if necessary)  Ensure correct treatment assignment  Could be firm or individual depending on number of applicants  Researcher to design surveys  Data collection firm  Data collection supervisor (M & E specialist)  Arianna Legovini to work with M & E team to analyze data in Lagos in July/August 2011

Title BUDGET Budget  Accreditation: Waiting for bids…Approximately $250,000  Data collection:  Household surveys: $200,000  Web-based survey: $20,000  Compensation for web-based survey: $10,000  Staffing: Mostly covered under budget for PIU