After studying at the Anglo-Chinese Primary School and the Anglo-Chinese Secondary School between 1927 and 1936 where he was second in his class in the Senior Cambridge Examinations, Goh went on to graduate from Raffles College in 1939 with a Class II Diploma in Arts with a special distinction in economics. He then joined the colonial Civil Service as a tax collector with the War Tax Department but, according to his superiors, was not very good at his job and was almost fired. Shortly after the start of World War II, he joined the Singapore Volunteer Corps, a local militia, but returned to his previous work after the fall of Singapore. Goh married Alice Woon, a secretary who was a colleague, in 1942 and they had their only child, Goh Kian Chee (), two years later. In 1945 he relocated his young family to Malacca, but they returned to Singapore the following year after the Japanese occupation ended. That year, he joined the Department of Social Welfare, and was active in post-war administration. He became supervisor of the Department's Research Section six months later.