Education Management Information System (EMIS) is a necessary tool for educational policy management, education reform, and monitoring and evaluation in education that enables the creation of valuable inputs for improving the quality of education (Abdul-Hamid, 2014; UNESCO, 2018; Bőjte, 2019). Introduction of an EMIS into a complex world of an educational system is a difficult task. One challenging aspect is defining an EMIS that can fit all scenarios and include all data needs and flows (Tolley & Shulruf, 2009), especially in a country such as Serbia, with over million students, three thousands of educational institutions with over 150 thousand of employees, and a diversity of educational programs held in several languages. Another concern is the social context of EMIS introduction, and how such novelty changes working routines and social relations in educational institutions (Kling, 2000).

Implementation of an information systems (IS) often face obstacles due to a gap between its design and the reality. Heeks (2002; 2006) argue that the size of this gap determines the probability of an IS successful implementation and its acceptance among users. He proposed a model for estimating the extent of this gap on six dimensions. Information dimension refers to a discrepancy between the envisioned set of data to be collected through an IS, and the data that users actually work with. Technology dimension assesses the difference between the required infrastructure for an IS to operate and the infrastructure available to users, in this case – to schools. Processes dimension deals with the difference in the processes envisioned to be automatized and the existing ones. Objectives and values dimension deals with the compatibility of the goals and values that an IS brings and enforces with the goals and values of its users. Staffing and skills accesses the gap between the required staff for operating the IS and their competence level and the available number of people and their actual competence level. Management system and structures is a dimension that is concerned with the discrepancy between the required managerial structure needed to guide the use of an IS and the one available. On the basis on this model, we analyzed the Serbian EMIS and looked into the causes of the gaps, which circled back to more broad and general structures in the decision-making process that pose barriers to other aspects of reform success as well.

After four unsuccessful attempts to build EMIS in Serbia in the last two decades, the Government of the Republic of Serbia started implementing EMIS, which has been developing since 2019. New EMIS includes data on all levels of education and collects data on schools, teachers, classes, and students (Rulebook on EMIS, 2019). However, during the first year of implementation, all groups of EMIS users – from those who collect and enter to those who use data – encountered difficulties. We utilized Heeks’ model as a lens to analyze the development and effectiveness of the implementation of EMIS. However, we discovered that challenges in the implementation of EMIS reflect subtle and wider obstacles to ensuring the quality of education. This study uses the case of EMIS implementation unravel these obstacles and to advocate for deconcentrated (Ivić, 2017) and participatory decision-making processes as an opposite to excessive top-down politics with poor communication of the change introduction in educational policy.

The study is a part of a project concerning support of reform implementation with a focus on the improvement of evidence-based policy making in Serbia, funded by European Union. The study was conducted during summer 2022. Methodological approach consisted of desk research, focus group discussions and interviews. Desk research was focused on analysis of relevant legal acts and bylaws. Five focus groups were conducted with a total of 104 representatives of educational institutions who enter data in EMIS and customer support administrators. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with users of educational data – three representatives of the government, five scientific researchers, and two representatives from other relevant institutions that use educational data. Findings from the desk research were presented to participants in both the focus groups discussions and the interviews and were used to guide the discussion. However, participants were eager to bring up other topics as well, so we would update the focus group and interview guide after each session. Transcripts of focus group discussions and interviews were recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were analyzed based on the Heeks’ dimensions in MAXQDA software.

Our analyses revealed a moderate gap on the information dimension as the introduction of EMIS envisioned collection of data that haven’t been collected before and whose purpose has not been communicated to the school staff nor the parents. A moderate gap exists on the technology dimension as some rural areas haven’t been recognizes as not having adequate technical resources. We noted resistance regarding the processes the EMIS is envisioned to fulfill, as some actors don’t appreciate automatization of certain decisions, mostly regarding finances. A moderate gap was also noted in terms of objectives and values, as a large number of staff and parents fear being monitored, don’t appreciate the expansion of technology or want to avoid transparency. On the staff and skills dimension - analysis revealed that many persons who are delegated to work with EMIS are not competent for the role or satisfied with it, since their workload has increased while their compensation remained the same. Finally, regarding the management system and structures dimension – our analysis revealed the need for decentralization of some managerial processes, the most important one being data quality assurance. Looking for the ways of removing the barriers in EMIS implementation and closing the uncovered gaps, we underlined several weak spots in the ways EMIS was design and introduced. Some of the gaps could have been narrower in policy making processes were more participatory and included perspective from the EMIS direct users. Closely related to this is a need for deconcentrating the decision-making processes in order to obtain better insight (e.g., on the available infrastructure or staff skills) and feedback (e.g., on data quality and technical issues). Finally, gaps in the domains of information and objective and values could be shrunk by better transparency and communication of context and intents of implementing different novelties and measures.

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