Big change questions : can we create a form of public education that delivers high standards for all students in the emerging knowledge society?

Within many Anglophone nation states there is significant debate about<br />the future of public education and its ongoing capacity to provide quality<br />education. The new knowledge economy not only challenges the position<br />of educators as the primary producers, disseminators and authorizers of<br />what is valued knowledge, but also requires them to prepare students for<br />new ways of working with that knowledge. In the service economies of<br />post-industrial Western nations, 'knowledge work' is critical to national<br />productivity and international competitiveness. At the same time, the<br />globalization logic suggests that the nation state is under threat, and therefore its role as provider of universal services such as education is also threatened.<br />