Combining Apprenticeship and formal education as an insurance device to reduce gender gap in educational outcomes

How to improve the gender gap in educational outcomes and labor market participation, especially in Africa, is a perennial source of concern for academics and policymakers. Despite free-education policies and widespread informational campaigns on return to education, girls’ school participation and achievement are low in many countries. In addition, girls’ enrollment in apprenticeships at the expense of school becomes increasingly prominent, widening existing gender gaps and fostering women’s underrepresentation in decision-making instances. This project argues that high unemployment rates, with persistent sources of friction in labor markets, dissuade parents and students to invest and participate in school. The team is then developing an intervention that integrates apprenticeship into the school curriculum, where selected secondary school students randomly receive apprenticeship training in addition to regular course work. Apprenticeship at schools, they argue, is an insurance device that offers alternative employment prospects to girls to participate and improve their educational outcomes and to parents to invest.