Investment in ICTs for education has grown steadily over the past decade in developing countries. following similar growth in OECD countries a decade earlier.  However despite growing interest and investment in this area, important gaps remain in the current knowledge base.

In addition, there is a dearth of useful resources that translate what is known to work—and not work—in this field for policymakers and donor staff working on education issues in developing countries, especially those issues related to Education For All and other education-related Millennium Development Goals.

infoDev is sponsoring a series of substantive research and analytical studies and capacity-building workshops designed to:

• enhance policy-relevant knowledge about what works, and what does not, in using ICT in education in developing countries, especially as it relates to the MDGs, and to
• make this knowledge more accessible to developing country policymakers and their colleagues in the donor community.

The primary audience for this work is policymakers in developing countries—especially those eligible to participate in the so-called "Fast Track Initiative" to help meet Education For All goals—and their partners in donor agencies.

Many donor staff are either skeptical about the usefulness of ICTs in this area and/or are poorly informed about emerging best practice and lessons learned. At the same time, they are receiving an increasing number of requests to include "ICT components" in donor-funded education projects from ministries of education which, although understandably enthusiastic about this promising area, are often unable to make informed policy-related decisions due to insufficient knowledge of the associated costs, benefits, mechanisms and trade-offs.

The analysis and recommendations contained in these studies are presented in a manner that allows busy policymakers and donor staff to make informed policy decisions on the suitability of a variety of ICTs to help address pressing concerns about the use of ICTs for education.

This work is being complemented by a series of infoDev-sponsored, regional workshops for policymakers on ICTs and education issues.