As progress is made towards universal primary school enrolment, and millions of children around the world complete primary schooling and hope to move on to a secondary school, an important question for policy-makers is emerging: how quickly to expand access to secondary education? Some have argued that secondary education is likely to have a much larger impact than primary education on long-run earnings, health, fertility, gender equality, and civic and political participation. But expanding secondary education is a significantly more expensive undertaking than providing free primary education.

In collaboration with the Ghana Education Service, we examine the medium and long-term impacts of secondary school for a cohort of students in Ghana who earned admission into a senior secondary school but could not afford to pay the fees. We do this by identifying a sample of 2,068 students who took the BECE in April 2007 or 2008, and gained admission into a senior secondary school for September 2008, but was unable to join because of financial distress. Out of these 2,068 students, 682 have been selected through random assignment to each receive a 4-year scholarship to attend the senior secondary school they were admitted to.

Between 2009 and 2018, we will keep track of all 2,068 students and conduct follow-up surveys with them, and the households that they reside in, every three years. The follow-up surveys will include questions on health, labor market outcomes, and fertility and marriage. This will enable us to measure the medium and long-term effects of acquiring secondary education on multiple aspects of life and well-being.