Within the framework of the systems approach, the aim of the education sector assessment/review is to examine in detail the current state of the education system and the policies pursued; to assess the constraints that impede the improvement of the system performance and identify opportunities to overcome or circumvent these obstacles; and to develop research-based policy options (Chang, 2006; Kemmerer, 1994).

In the sector review, educational system is examined not only in terms of the interrelations and interactions among its sub-systems, but also studied in terms of the environment within which it functions. Accordingly, education being a subsystem of the larger society is examined in relation to its linkages with the other sectors and its contribution to broader development goals. The ultimate purpose of the sector assessment is suggested as to eliminate or limit the arbitrary discretion in deciding educational policies, and in this direction institutionalization of scientific research-based policy-making process (Klees, 1995).

Early examples of sector assessments were developed in '50s and '60s (Klees and Veçhine, 1996); in the following years, the approach was taken up by the development agencies and has received widespread use with the aim of identifying the objectives and the scope of the projects and programs supported by these institutions.

Education sector analysis, in line with its development purposes and premises, is expected to be tailored to the requirements of the local context, hence to display differences specific to certain system being evaluated (Tyler, 1989). However, over time, adoption of a generic approach to perform this kind of studies has been observed in practice. This tendency is also reflected and reinforced in the manuals prepared to be of assistance in the application of the sector analysis. Besides, comparative studies carried out in different periods suggest that sector assessments supported and/or initiated by external funding agencies share similarities in terms of both findings and recommendations although they were conducted in different contexts (Daniere, 1977; Tyler, 1989; Gushee and Jain,1997). The reviews of the practice of sector analysis approach in educational development assistance raised a number of concerns including the predominance of the technocratic approach to policy making and policy evaluation, employment of economic indicators as the principal means of evaluating the system performance, lack of use of participatory arrangements to bring people with different perspectives and world views together, lack of due attention to the socio-economic, cultural, political, and institutional environment in which the educational system operates and the development of policy options in line with the objectives laid down by the global education agenda (Gushee and Jain, 1997; Klees, 1995 and Reimers, 1997; Samoff, 1990).

Issues raised above regarding the sector assessment practice cannot be solely attributable to implementation details. Rather, they reflect particular assumptions about the nature and the behavior of the education system suggesting a contradiction with the notions of the systems approach underlying sector assessment. Based on this reasoning, the current study attempts to explore this apparently contradictory relationship.

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