Graduate Entrepreneurship, Venture Formation, and Continuing Professional Development in Ghana: Evidence from a University Tracer Study

Graduate entrepreneurship is increasingly important in labour markets where formal salaried employment does not absorb all university graduates, yet tracer studies often report self-employment without examining venture timing, job creation, and continuing learning. This study develops a publication-oriented secondary analysis of entrepreneurship and professional-development indicators reported in the Catholic University of Ghana 2025/2026 graduate tracer-study analytical report. The source report contained 1,248 analytical graduate records. Self-employment accounted for 13.8% of the cohort; among self-employed graduates, 61.0% reported establishing a business within 12 months and 37.8% employed at least one other person. Wilson confidence intervals, exact binomial tests, Cohen's h, cascade conversion rates, a minimum entrepreneurial employment-footprint index, and partial-identification bounds for post-graduation learning were calculated from reported aggregate counts. The self-employment rate was 13.8% (95% CI 12.0%-15.8%). Early venture formation represented 8.4% of the full cohort, while job-creating entrepreneurs represented 5.2%. Under a conservative one-additional-worker assumption, graduate entrepreneurship generated a minimum direct employment footprint equivalent to 19.0 economic positions per 100 graduates. Reported postgraduate study, professional certification, and short-course/CPD participation indicated continued human-capital investment after graduation. The findings support an institutional entrepreneurship strategy that combines experiential entrepreneurship education, incubation, finance and market access, alumni mentoring, and modular continuing professional development. All numerical results require regeneration from the verified graduate-level dataset before empirical submission