Skills for Employability and Productivity Project. The acquisition of necessary land, teachers and administrators, on-going operational expenses for MCC-funded collèges de proximité, office space for MCA-Côte d’Ivoire’s satellite offices in Gbêkê and San Xxxxx, all operational expenses related to the supportive supervisor activities, the inter-ministerial teacher training committee, the Gender Unit’s operational expenses, field- operations of one or more national assessments, TVET accreditation for existing public and private TVET centers, operational subsidies for each PDC center, and TVET tracer studies; and
Skills for Employability and Productivity Project. The objective of the Secondary Education Activity is to increase the number of years of schooling and improve the acquisition of in-demand basic skills, including reading, math, and soft skills. The Activity seeks to increase access to, and the quality of, lower secondary education, particularly in the target regions, by creating new lower secondary schools, improving training for teachers, and increasing the number of teachers. The Activity will particularly target the educational outcomes of girls by supporting the development and operationalization of the Gender Policy for education and building the capacity of a Gender Unit within the Ministry of National Education. In addition, improved management and data systems will support more performance-driven decision-making and a more efficient allocation of resources. These combined investments are designed to result in improved acquisition of in-demand basic skills, increased completion rates for lower secondary students, and ultimately increased lifetime earnings for beneficiaries. The Activity will focus in the regions of Gbêkê and San Xxxxx and incorporates gender-related policy and institutional support in an effort to reduce regional and gender-based inequalities in enrollment rates for lower secondary education in these regions. The achievement of the outcomes cited above depend on a number of critical assumptions, as detailed in the table below. The objective of the TVET Activity is to improve the acquisition of in-demand technical skills and increase job placement rates among graduates from the PDC centers. The TVET Activity will support the creation and operationalization of new private sector-driven PDC centers, which will contribute to more agile, independent management of those TVET centers, better management of financial and infrastructure assets, with an aim to increase women’s participation in economically-viable training programs. In parallel, the Activity will seek to improve data and policy feedback loops, which will support more performance-driven decision-making and a more efficient allocation of resources. These combined investments are designed to improve acquisition of in-demand vocational/technical skills and improve employment outcomes for graduates of PDC centers, as a result of more sustainable TVET centers that better respond and adapt to private sector demand. These outcomes would, in turn, ultimately lead to increased lifetime earnings for beneficiaries and would potentially in...
Skills for Employability and Productivity Project. The Skills Project consists of two Activities, with a total of four sub-activities for the Secondary Education Activity and two sub-activities for the TVET Activity. Based primarily on the Project’s logic and the intended beneficiaries, three CBA models were developed – for the Equitable Access Sub-Activity, the Teacher Training Sub-Activity, and the TVET Activity. There are five ERRs presented here, including two additional aggregate-level ERRs for the Secondary Education Activity and the overall Skills Project. There were no ERRs calculated for two sub-activities (Gender Policy Sub-Activity and Management Systems Sub-Activity) that proved difficult to model given their scope and the data available, but their costs are included in the overall Skills Project ERR. Using the best available data at this time, the expected ERR for the entire Skills Project is 10.6%. The text that follows outlines the economic analysis for each of the three main ERRs calculated.
Skills for Employability and Productivity Project. An initial review of the proposed investments suggests that there may be opportunities to evaluate components of the Project through a rigorous impact evaluation using either experimental or quasi-experimental methods. A decision as to the appropriate evaluation approach will be made based on numerous factors, including technical feasibility, cost compared with likely learning, ability to isolate interventions of interest so as to accurately estimate their discrete impacts, and potential for the evaluation to fill gaps in the existing literature and evidence. Regardless of whether a rigorous impact evaluation is used, the evaluation will include a process evaluation to assess the fidelity of implementation to the original design and to understand how, if at all, the allocation of resources and decision-making have changed within the Ministry of National Education as a result of the investments. The evaluation will also carefully assess the long-term sustainability of Project investments, notably the lower secondary schools, teacher training annexes, and TVET centers, and of the impacts on key educational and learning outcomes. Potential evaluation questions include: What are the impacts of the Project on the students’ educational outcomes? What are the impacts of the Project on learning core competencies, such as literacy and numeracy? On crosscutting competencies or 'soft skills'? What is the effect of the Project on student enrollment, attendance, promotion, transition, dropout and graduation rates? Is the Gender Unit maintained and properly staffed post-Compact? Have the policies and practices established in the national strategy translated into material changes in the school environment for girls and the perceptions and realities associated with girls’ education at the lower-secondary level? If so, what are the impacts, if any, on enrollment, attendance, and graduation rates for girls? What are the impacts of the Project on teaching in the participating schools? Are improved teaching methods and practices widely adopted? Are the teacher training annex centers appropriately funded and maintained post-Compact? What are the impacts of the Project on the quality and relevance of technical skills of graduates of MCC-supported PDC centers? On the employment rates and wages of graduates of MCC-supported PDC centers? How long after the training do graduates obtain employment and is it within the relevant field of study and in line with the diploma ...
