Working Paper

Rethinking Education Management Information Systems: Lessons from and Options for Less Developed Countries

infoDev Working Paper #6

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Donors and planners often have unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved in a short time period and underestimate the challenges facing EMIS. Donors have often tended to assume that EMIS outputs would play an important role in helping managers to administer their education system in a more efficient and effective manner, while, governments have assumed that EMIS output would help them identify priority areas for targeting resources and helping them monitoring progress of strategies towards defined objectives. A review of four country cases reveals that this does not always occur and significant problems are often experienced with the operation of EMIS at all levels of the education system, and in the vast majority of instances systems are unsustainable without a considerable amount of donor support. Similarly, the utilisation and dissemination of EMIS outputs are often lower than anticipated.

About infoDev's working papers series:

These short papers represent work commissioned by infoDev that has not been through infoDev's peer review and formal publication processes. infoDev makes such reports available as informal 'working papers' to share information or ideas about a given topic, in case doing so may be of any interest or utility to practitioners working in related fields.


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By Cambridge Education. Published November 2006.

Learn more: Education

Activity file: Education Management Information Systems (EMIS)