Pooled Longitudinal Dataset on the Assessment of an Apprenticeship-Based Entrepreneurship Intervention in Nigeria

This dataset presents longitudinal data collected through four surveys (in six-monthly intervals) of fresh university and polytechnic graduates in Nigeria. The data were collected from 21,940 unique young men and women who underwent National Youth Service Corps (nysc) programme across ten states in Nigeria. The nysc programme is a compulsory one-year national service that all Nigerians under the age of 30 years must undergo after graduation. A key component of the one-year service is the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (saed) programme of the nysc. The dataset is useful for many purposes. It contains enough information to fully profile the entrepreneurship and apprenticeship characteristics of the fresh graduates. Moreover, it can be used to quantify the potential pool of future entrepreneurs among highly educated Nigerian youth. The dataset was originally used to assess the impact of saed, being an apprenticeship-based entrepreneurship intervention, on entrepreneurial outcomes among young persons. However, its use may also extend to an assessment of the impact of compulsory entrepreneurship training in the Nigerian university system that produced most of the respondents.

The dataset is from a longitudinal study comprising four surveys -a baseline, two follow-up surveys and an endline -collected from university and polytechnic graduates who were undergoing the one-year compulsory national service across ten selected states in Nigeria.Universities and polytechnics are higher education institutions (hei s) in the Nigerian education system.The polytechnics award a higher national diploma, which is considered a technical education certification equivalent to the Bachelor's degree awarded by the universities.Graduates of both institutions are mobilized for the one-year national youth service.As of the time of writing this manuscript, there are a total of 221 universities and 173 polytechnics in Nigeria, according to the National Universities Commission (nuc)1 and the National Board for Technical Education (nbte),2 respectively, which are their regulating agencies.These hei s are either federal, state government-owned or private-owned.Many of the universities offer generalized courses while some specialize in specific areas such as agriculture, maritime studies, aviation, technology and healthbased courses (Egbetokun et al., 2020).
The surveys were designed for a longitudinal study to assess the impact of the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (saed) programme of the nysc, which is the largest apprenticeship-based entrepreneurship intervention for young people in Nigeria, and arguably in Africa.The saed programme introduces apprenticeship-based entrepreneurship training in several skill sectors to Corps members.The study was based on the premise in management literature that educated entrepreneurs tend to be better managers who nurture high-growth firms and expand modern businesses, and that apprenticeship is an effective means of increasing the pool of potential entrepreneurs (Gennaioli et al., 2013;La Porta & Shleifer, 2014;Onakala & Banwo, 2015).
The surveys were collected at roughly 6-monthly intervals across the ten selected states, including a baseline survey in November 2020 when the respondents were newly mobilized for their service and were having the Orientation programme on the camps, two follow-up surveys respectively in April and October 2021, and an endline survey in April 2022 after the respondents had exited the nysc scheme for about six months.

Value of the Data
The dataset is useful for quantifying the pool of potential educated entrepreneurs in Nigeria and for understanding the correlates of their motivation and interest.The dataset is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest on the subject of entrepreneurship among young educated Nigerians.The baseline survey data fills a critical research gap in understanding and assessing the impacts of the introduction of compulsory entrepreneurship courses in the Nigerian university system that produced most of the respondents (see Olofinyehun et al., 2018).
The data was originally used to assess the design, delivery and impacts of the saed programme of the nysc on entrepreneurial outcomes which is by far the largest apprenticeship-based entrepreneurship development programme for young people in Africa, and which by the start of the surveys had run for a decade; but it can also be applied to evaluating the impact of policies that are relevant to the target population between November 2020 and April 2022.
Governments and donors can especially find the data useful in designing responsive strategies and programmes to support apprenticeship and entrepreneurship development among educated young people in developing countries.Nigeria is a typical developing country in terms of its size and economy; lessons about Nigeria can be revealing and instructive for the rest of the developing world.Researchers in the field of entrepreneurship and development studies can use the data for comparative analyses to compare with other countries, implement further impact evaluation research and support systematic reviews in the future.

3.1.
Context Nigeria is divided into 36 sub-national administrative units called states, in addition to the Federal Capital Territory (fct).These are grouped into 6 geopolitical zones as shown in Figure 1 -North-East, North-Central, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West.The nysc, with the national directorate headquarters in the fct and operations in every state, handles the mobilization of all eligible Nigerian graduates for the scheme.Eligible university and polytechnic graduates are deployed annually for a one-year service to any of the states other than their state of origin.The assignment of graduates is completely random.The nysc programme commences with a three-week Orientation Programme, which takes place at the orientation camps across all the states and the fct.
The saed programme has two components.The first and near-compulsory one is the on-camp introduction of apprenticeship training skills to the Corps members.This happens during the 3-week Orientation camp programme, and it is designed to motivate the Corps members to decide on which skill set they will follow for the rest of the service year.The post-camp component follows after the camp when Corps members decide whether or not they will continue to learn as an apprentice under a master, who is in most cases an accomplished entrepreneur or craftsperson.

3.2.
Sampling The surveys took place in ten states covering the Batch B 2020 Corps members who underwent the service between November 2020 and October 2021.Because the distribution of graduates into states where they will serve is completely random, the cohort of Corps members is practically homogenous across all states, even though total numbers may differ between states due to the differences in the capacity of available facilities in each state.To effectively reflect the national spread of the Corps members, the survey covered 2 randomly selected states in each of the 5 zones, the North-East deliberately exempted due to the insecurity there.Thus, we drew our sample from about a third of all the eligible states in Nigeria.In each of the selected states, a survey of all Corps members was targeted at baseline, yielding a total of 9,304 respondents covered at baseline.At the first midline survey, the number increased to 16,420.This was because at the time of the first midline survey, new Corps members who were not covered at baseline had been redeployed into the covered states after they had had their orientation program elsewhere.Many of those covered at baseline had also been redeployed to other states and were therefore lost.Response rates were drastically low in the second midline and endline surveys.This was because the last two surveys were administered online and focused on an experimental sample of less than 2000.Moreover, the respondents had passed out of the nysc programme by the time of the endline survey and were much more difficult to reach.116,498 (44%) females.As indicated above, our data mirrors the national distribution of the Corps members but it is not perfectly representative of the distribution of Nigerian graduates along demographic dimensions (except sex) at the time of the study.This is because the number of Corps members undergoing the national youth service is itself not perfectly representative of the total or stock of university and polytechnic graduates in the system at any given time.Several factors account for this.One, all institutions in the Nigerian higher education system do not operate a uniform calendar, so the graduation period differs across institutions, and many graduates wait for months and years before being mobilized for the national service.This is particularly the case for our sample, which was drawn from the first set of graduates to commence nysc after the Covid-19 lockdown.Two, though the national service is compulsory, graduates may choose to defer their service for health, marital or academic reasons (some programs allow graduates to complete their Master's degree before going for nysc); and those who defer will end up being later mobilized with a different graduation cohort.Three, those who graduate after age 30 are exempted from the national youth service.Four, many graduates, more common these days than before, travel abroad immediately after graduation to return much later for the nysc, and some never return.

3.3.
The Instrument Questionnaires differed across surveys, some questions cutting across a number of or all the surveys while some questions were particular to certain surveys.The baseline was the largest as it was meant to fully profile the respondents before the saed intervention.The midline surveys were particularly devoted to eliciting information from the respondents regarding their experience and assessment of the on-camp and post-camp components of the saed programme.The endline survey was particularly focused on capturing the effects that saed may have had on the ex-Corps members in terms of entrepreneurial interest, self-employment, securing decent employment and employment creation.Table A1 in the Appendix presents all the variables and shows in which survey(s) they were covered.
The questionnaires -which were hand-delivered to all the Corps members at baseline and first midline surveys, and administered online for the second midline and endline surveys -consist of closed-ended and Likert-scale questions, as well as open-ended questions that sought to elicit deeper insights from the respondents.Copies of the questionnaires for all the surveys are included in the repository where the datasets are deposited.Overall, the questionnaires covered various sections, as follows: (i) Personal information (biodata) (ii) Educational information (iii) Family background (iv) Entrepreneurship/business experience (v) Entrepreneurial attitude

Data Description
Structured questionnaires were used to collect information from the respondents.The questionnaires included both close-ended and Likert-scale questions with some open-ended questions that sought to elicit detailed explanations, as necessary.The questionnaire is provided as a supplementary file.The surveys were self-administered physically or online.For the first two surveys, questionnaires were hand-delivered to the respondents following an introductory address on the research project by a member of the research team or a trained enumerator.The last two surveys were administered online via Google Forms4 or Kobo Collect,5 respectively.The dataset is provided in a public repository.

Profile of Respondents
The profile of the 9,304 respondents covered at baseline is presented in Table 2. Most (83.35%) of the respondents were under the age of 30.This is as expected; because only those who have graduated before age 30 are mobilized for the nysc scheme, while those who are above age 30 at graduation are given exemption certificates.The less than 2% who are age 30 and above likely represent those who, after graduation, must undertake internship/housemanship for another year before proceeding on national service.Additionally, there is sometimes a time lag between graduation and the commencement of the national service, depending on the exact time of graduation in relation to the nysc calendar, which may also explain why only about 10% of the respondents have graduated within a year of the time of the survey.There was a higher percentage of males than females.The graduates are mostly single.In terms of ethnic origin, the three major tribes -Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba -are well represented; and all additional tribes (including, for instance, Efik, Tiv, Ijaw, etc.) are bundled under the 'Others' category.Most of the respondents held a university bachelor's degree, while a little above a quarter of them had the Higher National Diploma (hnd) from polytechnics; and a few have postgraduate qualifications.The disciplinary backgrounds of the respondents spread across sciences, engineering, arts and education courses.

Conclusion
We have presented and described a longitudinal dataset originally collected to assess the effectiveness of an entrepreneurship initiative among a cohort of Nigerian university and polytechnic graduates.We hope that policymakers and development actors will find the dataset useful for guiding policy and practice, and researchers for further research in the youth entrepreneurship landscape in Nigeria and Africa.

Ethical Approval
In implementing the surveys, informed consent was a key ethical issue that was considered.Official approval to conduct the survey among Corps members was obtained from the nysc Directorate Headquarters in Abuja.Every participant gave their consent before the questionnaires were administered.Essentially, they were fully informed about what the study was about and what participation in the study would entail.In addition, every questionnaire was prefaced with information that explained the purpose of the study and the role of the implementing agencies.

-
Pooled Longitudinal Dataset on the Assessment of an Apprenticeshipbased Entrepreneurship Intervention in Nigeria deposited at Mendeley -doi:www.doi.org/10.17632/x7v3gd2wm3.2 -Temporal coverage: November 2020-April 2022 olofinyehun et al Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vi) Apprenticeship (vii) Entrepreneurship education (viii) Personal entrepreneurship characteristics (pecs) (ix) Family and societal influence on entrepreneurship development (x) Contact information (xi) Participation and assessment of the saed programme, on-camp and post-camp (xii) Post-nysc entrepreneurial outcomes 3.4.Data Processing Data entry of the raw data was done with Statistical Package for Social Scientists (spss) package version 20, and processed with Stata version 13.

Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Data Journal for the Humanitiesand Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48

Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Data Journal for the Humanitiesand Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48

Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48 Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/s/

n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Data Journal for the Humanitiesand Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48

s/n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Data Journal for the Humanitiesand Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48

s/n Variable Label (in most cases, as in the questionnaire)
Downloaded from Brill.com 08/23/2024 02:34:25PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Research Data Journal for the Humanitiesand Social Sciences 8 (2023) 1-48