How to Change Education — A Practical Roadmap for Today and Tomorrow

Education is not broken. It’s evolving — and faster than most of our policies and institutions can keep up. If we want schools to prepare young people for the next decades, we must stop treating education as a machine that processes students and start treating it as a living, human-centered practice. Below I set out a clear, practical way to reframe what schools are for, what great teaching looks like, and how change actually happens — with bite-sized actions anyone in a school community can take right away.

Start with purpose — “basics” are ends, not subjects

Too often “getting back to basics” becomes shorthand for a small set of favored subjects: math, literacy, coding. That’s backwards. The real basics of education are the purposes we expect schools to deliver:

Economic: prepare young people to make a living and adapt as work changes.
Cultural: help learners understand their own identities and the perspectives of others.
Civic/social: create active participants in community and democracy.
Personal: enable each learner to discover and develop their talents and passions.

Once we agree on those ends, we can choose curricula, assessments and school designs that actually serve them.

The skills that matter now (and will matter more)

The jobs and social realities students will face are different from those of a generation ago. Rather than memorizing facts, schools must cultivate:

Adaptability & learning-to-learn — the ability to pick up new skills quickly.
Creativity & divergent thinking — forming original ideas and reframing problems.
Complex problem solving & collaboration — working across disciplines and with others.
Digital and data literacy combined with critical judgment — using tools appropriately and questioning sources.
Civic literacy and empathy — participating constructively in diverse communities.

These are not optional extras. They are the core capabilities that let a graduate make a meaningful life in a rapidly changing world.

Put the teacher–learner relationship at the centre

At its heart, education is a relationship: a teacher and a learner meeting, engaging and changing each other. Everything else — timetables, standards, technology — should support that relationship, not get between it.

What great teachers do that systems often miss:

Design moments of curiosity — they create entry points that make learners care.
Use feedback as fuel — formative, specific feedback helps students iterate and improve.
Facilitate peer teaching — students learn by explaining, testing and correcting each other.
Scaffold high-quality practice — deliberate practice with coaching beats passive exposure.
Cultivate identity and motivation — they help students connect learning to personal aims.

If we want to improve outcomes, start by equipping and empowering teachers. Invest in coaching, collaborative planning time, and instructional design skills — not only content knowledge.

Rethink assessment: from gatekeeping to learning measurement

High-stakes, one-off tests narrow instruction and reward recall. The alternative is an ecosystem of assessment that supports growth:

Frequent, low-stakes checks (quizzes, mini-projects) that inform teaching.
Performance tasks and portfolios that show applied mastery over time.
Competency-based progression allowing students to advance when they demonstrate learning, not when the calendar says so.
Human-verified high-stakes decisions — keep critical evaluations in human hands, using technology to amplify fairness and speed.

Assessments should measure what truly matters: the ability to use knowledge creatively, collaborate, and solve real problems.

Use technology as an amplifier — not a substitute

Technology is an enormous accelerant for learning when used intentionally. It can personalize practice, provide instant feedback, and free teachers to focus on higher-value interactions. But technology is only a tool — it cannot replace human mentorship, judgement or the ethical teaching of critical thinking.

Practical principles for integrating tech:

Start with learning goals, then ask how technology supports them.
Use adaptive practice tools for repetitive skill-building; use classroom time for synthesis and discussion.
Teach digital fluency — how to use AI and information sources responsibly.
Protect privacy and transparency — know who owns student data and how algorithms make decisions.
Guard against dependency — keep high-stakes assessment human-led and audit automated systems for bias.

When chosen well, tools reduce teacher workload and create more space for rich, human instruction.

Change from the ground up — culture, not command

Top-down mandates rarely transform the daily practice of classrooms. Real change spreads organically: teachers try new methods, share results, and others adapt them. Schools are organisms — each classroom develops its own culture and, through networks, innovations scale.

If you lead a school or district, think like a climate manager, not a controller:

Fund small, frequent experiments and expect some to fail.
Build teacher networks for peer observation and cross-school sharing.
Remove barriers (overloaded schedules, punitive accountability measures) that stop teachers from experimenting.
Celebrate micro-successes and share stories widely.

Change that starts with practitioners is more sustainable, ethical and effective.

Equity first: close divides before adding complexity

New approaches and tech can widen inequalities unless we prioritize access and support. Every plan must include:

Universal connectivity and device programs.
High-quality professional support for teachers in under-resourced schools.
Locally relevant materials and multilingual options.
Community partnerships to extend learning beyond school hours.

Equity is not a side-note; it’s a precondition for any meaningful reform.

Concrete steps for immediate action

For teachers:

Redesign one unit as a project that ends in a real product or public performance.
Replace at least one high-stakes test with a portfolio element.
Set up peer-teaching routines in every class.

For school leaders:

Protect two hours per week for teacher collaboration and coaching.
Pilot competency-based pathways for one grade level.
Run a small grant program for teacher-led innovation projects.

For policymakers:

Shift funding toward professional learning and assessment infrastructure.
Create transparent standards for educational technology and data use.
Recognize micro-credentials and stackable pathways in funding and accountability.

For communities and parents:

Join school governance, offer local expertise for projects, and hold assessments accountable to broader measures of learning and engagement.

The long view: what we should prepare learners for

Looking ahead, the most secure advantages will be human-centered:

Creativity, judgment and emotional intelligence will matter even more.
Lifelong learning will be normal — systems must make reskilling accessible.
Distributed ecosystems (schools, employers, creators, community hubs) will share the role of educating citizens.
Ethical use of data and algorithmic fairness will shape trust in education.

We should design systems that treat learning as continuous, equitable, and life-wide.

A simple five-point checklist to start changing your school tomorrow

Convert one course to a project-based model this term.
Replace a single standardized test with a performance task or portfolio.
Create one teacher learning team that observes and coaches each other weekly.
Launch an after-school civic or makerspace project tied to community needs.
Publish one short case study of a classroom innovation to share with other schools.

Final note: keep the human core

Technology, policy and new assessments are powerful — but they are only useful when they support the human work of teaching and learning. If we protect and invest in the teacher–learner relationship, give teachers agency to design learning, and reorient systems toward adaptability, creativity and equity, we will create schools that prepare young people not just to survive change, but to shape it.

Change isn’t delivered from on high. It grows where people teach, learn and experiment every day. Start there.