Scale and scope economies and productivity of polytechnic higher education institutions in Ghana and gender earnings gap of their higher national diploma graduates

Abstract

This Social Studies thesis consists of four empirical studies on the public Polytechnic Higher Education Institutions in Ghana (PHEIGs). Using the flexible quadratic cost function model, the first empirical study examines economies/diseconomies of scale and scope of PHEIGs outputs. Product–specific diseconomies of scale are found at the Technician programme, Higher National Diploma, Bachelor of Technology and Research mean outputs. Global economies of scale, product-specific and global economies of scope at mean operating outputs are established. The second empirical study using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), reveal empirical evidence suggesting that 80 percent of the PHEIGs are technically efficient in productivity for the 2014-2015 calendar year, while the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) results indicate that the PHEIGs total factor productivities changes fall between 0.21 and 0.93 values suggesting that majority of the PHEIGs registered losses within the range of 7 percent to 89 percent in productivity, and the prevalence of technical inefficiencies in the range of 0 - 56 percent and little changes in distance from most productive scale size over the study period of 2010-2011 to 2014-2015. The value ranges also indicate that the PHEIGs do not operate at a homogeneous level of efficiency. The third empirical study examines the sources of PHEIGs Internally Generated Funds (IGFs) and established that 94 percent of the 32 items constituting the IGFs realised are additional cost to students indicating the continuation of the era of cost-sharing in Higher Education in Ghana disguised as IGFs. The fourth empirical study conducts a tracer study to determine the earnings structure and the gender earnings gap among PHEIGs 2013 Higher National Diploma graduates (HND) using the interval regression model and the Oaxaca decomposition models respectively. The phenomenon of an intra-class gender earnings gap is established in the Ghanaian labour market, suggesting that 2013 male HND graduates with sample 2013 female HND graduates average characteristics earn 44 percent more in monthly earnings than their female counterparts on average, ceteris paribus.