Leveraging Curriculum Reform: An Evaluation of Curriculum Reform Support Programs for Entrepreneurship Teachers in Rwanda

At least ten countries across Africa, including Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Namibia, are currently undergoing secondary curriculum reforms to teach youth the skills they need to succeed after school. Yet many of these reforms are not effective due to implementation challenges, particularly the prevalence of traditional rote-memorization pedagogy. This study will examine pedagogy-targeted curriculum reforms and teacher training in the delivery of Rwanda’s revised secondary school entrepreneurship curriculum, to be introduced in 2016. A subset of schools will be randomly selected to receive two years of ongoing teacher training on the curriculum. A second group will receive teacher training and a teacher’s assistant to support curriculum delivery. A control group will receive the curriculum only. The study will measure impact on student academic and life outcomes over a period of three years. The results will inform government efforts to implement competency-based curriculum reforms in secondary schools across Africa.