What else have successful systems to tell us about the issues we face today? Schleicher's work demonstrates compellingly that demand for the competencies 20th-century school systems were good at imparting (routine cognitive and manual skills) is falling sharply among employers across the world. He shows that 21st-century systems need to prepare young people with the skills to undertake non-routine analytic and, especially, non-routine interactive tasks. Schleicher's conclusion is: "The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also easiest to digitise, automate and outsource."

The implication of these findings is that systems need to prepare students "to deal with more rapid change than ever before … for jobs that have not yet been created … using technologies that have not yet been invented". This is about learning how to learn, and new ways of thinking that involve creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making. It is in sharp contrast to an emphasis on the capacity to reproduce facts. Reducing the debate into a "skills v knowledge" dichotomy is manifestly false. The issue is the right balance between content acquisition, and the skills and dispositions needed to succeed in fundamentally changed conditions. This is the key message of Schleicher and the OECD's work. It is to be hoped that the current curriculum review is permitted to take this wider view.