Even when personnel are available, restricted funds for travel and other expenses limit what they can do. Personnel and technology needs will be closely intertwined in the next decade. The nature of the work in the division will change profoundly as new technological innovations are implemented. Although these changes will not necessarily require a significantly larger staff in the long run, there will be transitional needs for new staff and also a need to reconfigure the existing staff structure. Plans should be developed to take into account the effects of new technology on the division's human resources and to prepare for turnover due to retirements.
Provision needs to be made for continuous training in the new technologies.
Computer hardware should be upgraded, beyond plans already in existence, and tech- nical and policy issues involved in providing wider user access to the data base via electronic means should be addressed. We believe that the organization will not be well positioned to defend the scope and quality of its education statistics pro- gram until it remedies the failure to define and commit itself to a core set of activities consistent with the principles and practices of a good statistical agency and widely recognized as legitimate by its major constituencies and users. The current data collection framework, largely unchanged for decades, reflects an older emphasis on resources or inputs into education and does not address growing worldwide concern about the performance of education systems and students. We want to stress, however, that we view these recommendations for reform and reorganization as a synergistic package, possessing mutually reinforcing possibilities if adopted in their totality. They are designed to take maxi- mum advantage of their reciprocal interactions.