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The Education Management Information System (EMIS) design in Ghana is an example of best practice for decentralized planning and budgeting, supporting reforms at various levels but challenges remain for successful implementation, notably in commitment, and capacity development and dissemination. EMIS plays an important role in policy formulation, operational planning and subsequent monitoring of targets through periodic review although stakeholder participation has yet to be fully developed. The system is particularly useful for calculating levels of disadvantage and related budget allocations. EMIS is established for non-formal education where it is being decentralized and in higher education where it could be better utilized for planning future developments. Early EMIS suffered from major capacity constraints but the later introduction of a policy for free, compulsory, basic education spurred development of increased capacity in relation to public institutions in the relevant sub-sectors. Decentralization is resulting in greater local utilization of information with the centre now taking on support and quality assurance roles. However, there remain issues of obtaining information from private schools although data quality for public schools has been increased through better verification.