In this Paper we include measures of school quality in regressions determining the labour market
premiums to education level. We use the matric exemption score and the pupil/teacher ratio of the
respondents’ closest school during childhood as proxies for education quality. We find that the
employment and earnings premiums to education level are robust to the inclusion of these quality
measures. Moreover, there is a significant direct relationship between our quality measures and earnings,
controlling for education level. Increasing the matric exemption score by 10 percentage points increases
earnings, on average, by 8% and decreasing the pupil/teacher ratio by one learner is associated with a 1%
increase in earnings. No significant relationship is found between the school quality measures and
employment.