Challenges in education - Urgency and selfless focus are essential

ANYONE with the slightest interest in the role that education has to play in advancing this society and rebuilding our economy realises that considerable change is needed at nearly every level in our schools and colleges.

Just as in virtually every other sector of society, the options are limited and stark: change or fail and accept the unpalatable consequences of that failure.

Teachers and academics, politicians and parents, employers and a growing number of students realise that our system, though far better than many, must improve almost beyond all recognition if we are to create and sustain a modern, solvent European society.