Returns to Secondary Education: Unpacking the Delivery of Secondary Schooling in Ghana
Comprehensive data collection at senior and junior schools which looked at the returns to secondary schooling
Abstract
This grant was used to conduct a comprehensive data collection at the Senior High School (SHS) and a subset of Junior High School (JHS) attended by 2,054 students who are part of a larger randomized study looking at the returns to secondary schooling. At each of the schools, a total of 6 total survey instruments were administered, including tests of math teachers’ knowledge.
The goals of the study were to shed light on
- the landscape of delivery of secondary education in rural areas
- the sources of heterogeneity in returns to schooling
The data collected overall paints a much more homogeneous picture of secondary schooling than expected. Although the authors observed differences in the school infrastructure and the characteristics of students (for example. entering BECE scores and student behaviors) enrolling in schools of varying selectivity, overall they found few differences in the management, motivation, and effort of headmasters and math teachers across these schools. Furthermore they observed a strong positive effect of enrollment in schools of all types.
This was funded under the J-Pal Post-Primary Education Initiative
Citation
Pascaline, D., Johnston, J., Returns to secondary education: Unpacking the delivery of senior secondary schooling in Ghana, December 2015, 30p
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