![]() Whether such actions or innovations have positive or negative effects (and often they of course have *both* positive and negative effects), policymakers can play key roles in amplifying, inhibiting, or re-directing such effects to help serve various larger policy goals and objectives. Whether in the end this is a result of reasoned and deliberate decisions by a policymaker, or occurs as a result of (for lack of a better term) governmental neglect or inattention, there is no denying that, if and where people are provided the space, tools, incentives and means to innovate, they may just do so. In some cases, 'getting out of the way' can be a relevant policy choice. Useful policies and policy guidance can facilitate, enable and encourage certain desirable actions and outcomes inappropriate or 'bad' policies can do the exact opposite. ![]() When it comes to the development and use of new technologies, the absence of related policy guidance or directives can sometimes enable useful action and activity in certain areas - especially those which are changing quickly, as can often be the case when new technologies and technology-enabled actions are being introduced and evolving rapidly. This may or may not be true, depending on the nature and substance of a specific policy and local context. It is an abiding (and fully understandable) conceit of many governmental policymakers that 'policy drives practice'. Whether one agrees with apparent policy intent or not, being able to identify such intent can be a catalyst for important discussions and analysis: It should be noted that what appears to matter most to policymakers, at least according to the official policy documents that they draft and circulate related to ICT use in education, may not in fact be what *actually* matters most from the perspectives of students, teachers, school leaders, parents and local communities, politicians, local industry, academics, researchers and other various key stakeholders and beneficiaries. Nevertheless, some clear messages emerge from an analysis of this collected database of policy documents, suggesting some general conventional wisdom about 'what matters most' from the perspective of policymakers when it comes to technology use in their education systems, and how this changes as ICT use broadens and deepens. The specific related policy guidance related to each theme often differs from place to place, and over time, as do the emphasis and importance ascribed to this guidance. This analysis of ICT/education policies under the SABER-ICT research initiative suggests that there is a set of eight common themes which are, in various ways, typically addressed in such documents. This is work is part of the institution's multi-year efforts under its Systems Approach for Better Education Results ( SABER) initiative to provide policy-relevant guidance for education decisionmakers in a number of policy 'domains' (including areas such as workforce development school finance teachers management information systems equity and inclusion and student assessment). The World Bank is concluding an analysis of over 800 policy documents related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education from high, middle and low income countries around the world in order to gain insight into key themes of common interest to policymakers.
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