As the use of ICT continue to expand in schools and universities in many countries, the UNESCO Bangkok Office has now published a Guidelines on ” Developing and Using Indicators of ICT Use in Education”, a short handbook on how to monitor the use and outcomes of ICTs and to demonstrate accountability to education stakeholders, funding sources and the public.

Indicators are needed to show the relationship among technology use, educational reforms, the empowerment of teacher, changes in teaching and learning processes and student learning. They are also needed to show that technology education should be seen not only as an end in itself, but as a means to promoting creativity, empowerment and equality, producing efficient learners and problem solvers.

To study and assess the actual impact of the utilisation of ICT, UNESCO is conducting an “Performance indicators on ICT for Education Project” as part of the “ICT in Education in Asia and the Pacific Programme”, an international undertaking funded by the Japanese Funds-in-Trust.

The Handbook, that is also available online has been compiled by UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, Bangkok and Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology, Metro Manila, Philippines. It introduces the terms “Indicators” and the rationale of their use, looks at their potential to assess impact of ICT in education, discusses methods of collecting indicators and presents various software or database systems for storing indicators.