Over the past decade, the IT Enabled Services - Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) sector has emerged as a major potential catalyst for social and economic growth in developing countries, attracting large amounts of business from overseas firms that want to outsource call centers, data processing, technical help desks, etc.
As part of efforts to develop globally competitive talent for the ITES-BPO industry in Nigeria, the World Bank, in cooperation with Nigeria’s Government, industry and education system, launched ACCESS Nigeria (Assessment of Core Competence for Employability in the Services Sector) in May 2010.
An assessment instrument was developed to determine the suitability of Nigeria’s talent pool for employment in the sector, as compared to requisite skill standards globally. After a pilot test on 300 students at the University of Lagos, the assessment was given to more than 3,000 final year university students and recent graduates in five cities in Nigeria. Half of the 3,000, chosen at random, were scheduled to participate in a 10-week training program in early 2012.
There were radio advertisements and outreach activities in local universities that attracted 3,018 applicants to the program to which the baseline survey was administered. The endline survey was collected by follow-up calls two years after the program finished and had a total of 1,007 individuals who participated in the training.
To test the effectiveness of training, a rigorous impact evaluation compared the trainees' employment outcomes to those of the control group that does not receive training.
The endline data is used to compare relevant indicators to data from the baseline. Furthermore, this data allows an opportunity to assess the pre-program situation of adolescent girls and young women in many aspects of their lives.