Innovating a new future for learning: Finding our path

This keynote paper makes the case that the pursuit of ‘school improvement’ is insufficient to address the challenges facing us if the world is to make available equitable, effective learning systems for all its citizens. A set of drivers of change are explored. It is argued that a ‘split screen’ approach is needed by system leaders and policy makers in which, while school improvement must continue to be pursued, simultaneously a ‘learning ecosystem’ should be created. Such a mutually supportive system would engage a much wider range of partners and players, and would locate learning in a new variety of spaces and places. The conditions needed to create such a system are suggested from the evidence of highly innovative sectors.