eThesis - Kauppakorkeakoulun sähköiset gradut

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As the global economy has transformed to a knowledge-based economy, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is considered as a potential powerful educational resource to improve educational quality. Policy makers are enthusiastic about ICT use in education, and investing enormous amounts of money especially in developing countries. However, academic researchers have not reached a consensus on the presence of a causal impact of ICT on education. Furthermore, studies on the impact of ICT on education with macro-estimations, which is useful to policy design, are lacking.

The objective of this thesis is to build macroeconomic model based on theoretical framework of educational production function to find policy implications for the use of ICT in education. The main findings are as follows. First, ICT is significantly correlated with educational outcomes. I then present some evidence of a positive causal effect of ICT expenditure on secondary level students' academic achievement, and undesirable effect of home use of ICT on primary drop-out rate, though it is very difficult to obtain valid instruments in this context. Lastly, ICT is differently correlated with educational quality outcomes depending on national income.

Based on these results and a careful reading of relevant literature, national policies for ICT use in education has been suggested. First, governments should have a long-term budget and implementation plan for ICT use in education. In addition, government should encourage families to own computers and provide improved wireless environments through a national broadband plan. Finally, it is necessary to focus on ICT resource development.