Duration of Pre-university Education and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from a Quasi-experiment in Ghana

Abstract

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of shortening the duration of pre-university education on long-term labour market outcomes in Ghana, expl`oiting the education reform of 1987 as a natural experiment. Our results indicate that the drastic cut in the duration of pre-tertiary education from 17 to 12 years improved the labour market success of treated cohorts. However, this is driven by a ‘quantity’ effect: the shorter course duration reduced the direct and indirect costs of acquiring post-primary education and allowed more students to enrol, which provided access to better job opportunities. On aggregate, this has dominated the negative effect on education ‘quality’. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.