Our focus needs to be upon creating the most effective conditions in which teachers can teach and learners can learn. Learning here means more than securing good results on tests of competencies - it means pursuit of ideas, mastery of knowledge, creating, engaging, inspiring. The beautiful risk of education needs to permit risk taking, learning from failure, professional judgement and the creative response to the challenge of learning together as well as learning alone. Here are the possible actions which could support this in relation to public education and the school system:

1. Focus the education system on the four pillars of education suggested in 1996 by UNESCO in the Delors report Learning - The Treasure Within. This recommended that the work of schools should be focused on:
   
   a. Learning to know
   b. Learning to do
   c. Learning to live together, learning to live with others
   d. Learning to be
   
   The implication here is that our focus should be on the development of the person in the context of learning, skills, collaboration, compassion and social engagement. Skills are important, but they need to be pursued in the context of these broad goals. We need to focus on building a sense of identity, strengthen the skills for learning for life, focus on activity based leaning and build a collaborative environment for learning. Some call this a commitment to deep learning, contrasting this with the surface learning required to pass a test and then forgetting what has been "learned".
2. Strengthen early childhood learning experiences. While some have seen this as "starting school early", the real focus for early childhood education needs to be strengthening curiosity, creativity and collaboration through play while building some competencies with language and number. Several studies show that the economic impact of investments in early learning in North America are between $7-$17 per $1 spent.
3. Drive public policy with a focus on equity - a great school for all. This requires differentiated instruction, inclusion of learners with special needs, leveraging digital technologies to support differentiated instruction and creating learning environments that encourage collaborative learning. Digital technologies in which teachers have been engaged in designing and deploying and which permit collaborative and peer to peer activities can be supportive here.
4. Strengthen work on essential skills - the fourth industrial revolution requires more of our learners to achieve levels 4 and 5 on the 5 point literacy scale used to assess literacy. Right now, too many learners leave their educational experience with levels 1-3. This means that many do not have the language, numeracy and cognitive skills they need to respond to the challenges and opportunities associated with many jobs. Strengthening literacy and numeracy and the other essential skills (including emotional intelligence) can have a significant impact on productivity, job-satisfaction and health. It should be clear that these skills are all developed in a context - through the study of subjects, skills and competencies - and through social interaction. Education should be thought of as a holistic endeavor, not like learning bits and pieces.
5. Strengthen the training and professional development for teachers and provide appropriate conditions of practice. A key to improving learning is to enable teachers to exercise collaborative professional autonomy. Teacher selection, training and support coupled with their conditions of practice. Build communities of practice locally, regionally, nationally and internationally and share effective practice openly. Teachers also deserve the trust and professional respect afforded to other professionals (e.g. doctors, lawyers) so that there are able to exercise without threat their professional judgement.
6. Refocus curriculum. Programs of study (published curriculum guidelines) vary from very flexible programs to programs that specific exactly what teachers should do every hour or every school day. While teacher expertise and conditions of practice vary greatly around the world, one barrier to success for learners is the over-crowding of the curriculum with "stuff" and minimizing the room for professional judgement. Teachers and learners need "room" to be creative and respond to learning opportunities in the classroom. It is important that all students are receiving a well-rounded education so that they can both navigate the world and become active and critical citizens. You cannot navigate a life with just literacy and numeracy. At the same time, the curriculum must be flexible enough so that students and teachers can pursue some of their particular interests and talents. However, it is important to remember that special interests are often formed while in education and are born out of the education process. In fact, education is all about fostering new interests and talents.
7. Strengthen school leadership and focus the work of leaders on learning and supporting teachers. Too much leadership time is spent reporting, accounting, and attending meetings about reports and accountability. More time needs to spent building a culture of learning and performance and supporting teachers. More attention to school leaders as enablers of learning, supporters of risk taking and network connectors for next practice. School leaders need to be supported in their attempts to develop agile and adaptive schools.
8. Make assessments helpful to learning. Too many assessments undertaken by students benefit systems administrators. Assessments needs to be for and about learning. The World Bank and others are right in saying that we do not have enough assessments for learning - we have too many assessments of learning, many of which do not assess the competencies which learners need and are specified in the agreed curriculum. We need to get this balance right so as to enable and support deep learning.
9. Strengthen public assurance. We need to change the language and focus of accountability. We need to focus more on public assurance - helping schools share their intentions and outcomes with their stakeholders. This means less reliance on outcomes in numeric form (test results), and more narratives about what the schools are doing and how the schools' students are succeeding in median and longer term. Examples of this can be found in school development plans and reflective reviews of progress*.
10. Make life-long learning more than a slogan. Learning is already something we each need to commit to throughout our lives - to stay healthy, to be active citizens, to be creative at work, to live meaningful lives. This is a major system challenge (captured in the sustainable development goal 4). But is also a challenge to instill in learners at all levels the love of learning new materials and skills, all the time. It is about the hard work to develop intrinsic motivations in a commercial world that is bent to feed us extrinsic motivations as shoppers and consumers.

These are broad headings. We need to make these challenges more concrete and meaningful, adapting them for each jurisdiction. We also need to more fully appreciate and trust the professional judgement of teachers - enabling and empowering them to do what they need to do for their learners to be successful in their own terms.

* See Murgatroyd, S (2011) Rethinking Education - Learning and the New Renaissance. New York: Lulu Press / Edmonton: FutureThink Press.