"The objective of the study is to identify the cost and financing constraints to text book provision and thereby help countries remove constraints on timely provision of affordable textbooks to all students in primary and secondary education. To this end, the study focuses exclusively on cost and fi ... nancing barriers and does not seek to examine other issues associated with textbook provision such as logistics of textbook provision (textbook development, procurement, distribution, storage, etc.), their use in the classroom, or their impact on learning outcomes. To set the stage, the study starts by highlighting textbook availability (chapter 2), summarizes the factors causing textbook scarcity (chapter 3), and reiterates the urgency of addressing the shortages (chapter 4). However, unlike most studies that addressed textbook availability, this study focuses on textbook cost (chapter 5) and financing issues (chapter 6), in an effort to address two questions. First, what is the actual cost of textbooks in the region, and how much scope is there for lowering these costs? Second, what share of education budgets do countries actually allocate to teaching and learning materials (TLM), and what shares would be needed to meet national targets in systems that have achieved affordable unit and system textbook costs? To provide a comparative perspective, chapter 7 discusses experiences with textbook provision in India, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Chapter 8 explores the opportunities offered by digital TLM. Chapter 9 concludes with lessons and recommendations. The study draws heavily on extensive background work undertaken to inform the analysis, conclusions, and recommendations." (Executive summary) more

"The impact of ICT use on learning outcomes is unclear, and open to much debate. Widely accepted, standard methodologies and indicators to assess impact of ICTs in education do not exist. A disconnect is apparent between the rationales most often presented to advance the use of ICTs in education (to ... introduce new teaching and learning practices and to foster 21st century thinking and learning skills) and their actual implementation (predominantly for use in computer literacy and dissemination of learning materials). Costs: Very little useful data exists on the cost of ICT in education initiatives, especially related to Total Cost of Ownership and guidance on how to conduct cost assessments. Current implementation of ICT in education: Interest in and use of ICTs in education appear to be growing, even in the most challenging environments in developing countries. Policy: Best practices and lessons learned are emerging in a number of areas, but with few exceptions (notably on ‘schoolnet’ development and general lessons learned), they have not been widely disseminated nor packaged into formats easily accessible to policy makers in developing countries, and have not been explicitly examined in the context of the education-related MDGs." (Key findings) more