In the past two-three decades, African countries have largely depended on external agencies and governments for assistance to improve their education sectors. These agencies have conducted studies to generate analytic information to guide their assistance packages. According to a WGESA-commissioned study entitled Analyses, Agendas and Priorities for Education in Africa prepared by Joel Samoff et al. (1996), the outcomes of sector analyses in Africa have tended to reflect the viewpoints of the agencies and have therefore created doubts about their reliability, relevance and utility. Furthermore, the reports have not been accessible outside the agencies which commissioned them. Nearly all studies reviewed were conducted by teams of researchers headed by and predominantly composed of foreigners. The conclusions and recommendations had little or no relationship with the pressing needs of the host countries. Locally initiated and executed sector studies did not, generally, measure up to standard in comparison with foreign aid supported studies. The WGESA-commissioned study covered the period 1990-1994. The Review of Education Sector Analysis in Ghana has been carried out to examine whether these observations were true of Ghana.

The period 1987-98 was selected as being the most appropriate for the review in Ghana. This was the period of very active education reform when various policies, especially the three Ministry of Education (MOE) Strategic Objectives were formulated, namely: improving the quality of teaching and learning, improving the management efficiency of the education sector, and improving access to and participation in basic education.

One hundred and fifty-one (151) study titles were identified for the review, but only 38 study reports could be accessed and summarized. Thirty-four of them were finally selected and critically analysed. The analysis of each study focused on the initiation, authorship, appropriateness of the methodology, consistencies between the methodology, findings, recommendations and conclusions, and the relevance of the studies to the educational needs of the country over the period of review. Sample surveys targeting initiators, authors and policy makers/implementers were used to obtain supplementary but important information (e.g. context of the study and the dissemination process) which could not be obtained from the study reports themselves. Responses were received from 19 policy-makers/implementers, 19 researchers and 8 initiator organizations.

On the basis of information obtained from document analysis and the sample survey, findings and conclusions of the review team were the following:

1. Of the 34 studies analysed, 4 were initiated and funded by MOE, 9 by MOE with donor financial support, 14 by development partners/donors, 3 by research institutions and 4 by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It is obvious from this breakdown that development partners have played a predominant role in the initiation of the studies reviewed. These findings show that the MOE is not investing adequately in research.
1. In spite of this predominant role, development partners did not interfere with the process and outcomes of the studies.
2. All indications from the review point to the fact that the studies reviewed are of high quality. This is confirmed by the fact that the findings and recommendations of the studies have been adjudged by policy makers/implementers to be reliable and relevant to the needs of the sector. It has, however, been observed that capacity in computer skills is generally low among local researchers. There is, therefore, the need to address this problem and it calls for the building of capacity in computer skills in education sector research.
3. Twenty-two of the 34 studies reviewed were conducted by local Ghanaian researchers. The claim in the WGESA-commissioned study about the predominance of expatriate researchers in education sector analysis is not reflected in this review.
4. More than half of the studies reviewed (21) focused on the basic education sub-sector. This finding is in consonance with the fact that, over the period under review, basic education was at the centre of the education reform policy with particular reference to the Free Compulsory Universal and Basic Education (FCUBE) Programme and that the assistance of development partners to the sector during the period was biased in favour of basic education.
5. There is not enough evidence from the review exercise to show that policy formulation under the education reforms benefited much from findings and recommendations of the studies reviewed. There are, however, points of convergence between what the studies were supposed to have achieved or addressed and the policy issues addressed under the education reforms.
6. The overall impression from the review is that co-operation among policy makers/implementers, development partners and researchers was satisfactory over the period of review. Development partners avoided interference in the work of researchers. Researchers, on the other hand, made their reports available to policy-makers. The latter, in turn, granted interviews and made documents available to researchers on request. There was, however, room for improvement.
7. Awareness of sector studies among policy makers/implementers is rather low. This seems to confirm the conventional wisdom that education sector studies are not known to those who need them for policy formulation.
8. Among the authors of the 34 studies analysed, only six were women. This confirms the lower representation of females in the education sector generally and in sector studies in particular.

The following recommendations were made based on the review: