Transition from school to work: unravelling mechanisms for employment in Ghana
The project is a two-year study funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. The research will investigate the transition from school to work among tertiary graduates who are completing the 2018 one-year mandatory national service programme.
The National Service scheme deploys tertiary graduates to priority areas within the public and private sectors to support developmental activities. A key aim of the scheme is to remove some of the bottlenecks in the labour market by providing an equal level of job-related experience for tertiary graduates. The study investigates: to what extent pre-labour market experience in the form of paid and unpaid internships and other labour market experience supports employment outcomes and minimizes unemployment durations post national service; the effectiveness of the experience gained from the one year national service in preparing graduates for the labour market; whether the effectiveness of this experience differs by individual circumstance, family background and gender, and; the overall effectiveness of the one year national service in ensuring better labour market outcomes for graduates. The research will be conducted in two stages: the first stage is conducted when graduates are still enrolled on the scheme; the second stage is conducted after they have completed their national service programme.
Research objectives
- To improve understanding of how factors such as family background and pre-labour market experience can affect employment outcomes of graduates.
- To explore how the National Service Scheme is able to remove some of the bottlenecks in the labour market by providing an equal level of job-related experience for tertiary graduates.
Research team