Prepared for a 1984 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conference, this report addresses the necessary reform of educational systems and the cost of new information technologies and their efficiency in education. A discussion of trends in public expenditures for education includes a review of trends since 1970 in OECD countries, the structure of expenditure, and trends in public educational effort. The need for and problems in improving efficiency in education are considered, including the growing inefficiency of the traditional system, the relative failure of the "old" new technologies, and the potential efficiency of the new information technologies. Costs of these technologies are discussed in the context of: (1) methods and problems in measuring costs; and (2) the information content and shortcomings of available data. The supposed advantages of the new information technologies are reviewed, as well as the findings of evaluation studies, efficient use of the new technologies, and the external effects of their introduction in education. The principal outstanding problems are reviewed in the concluding statement and recommendations are made for cost studies, measurements of efficiency, and cost effectiveness studies. Notes and references and a paper on the problems of measuring education costs and methodological choices are included. (MBR)