Tracey Burns is Chief of Research for the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation at the OECD‘s Directorate for Education and Skills. She is additionally a Commissioner in the UNESCO Broadband Commission, and was an expert for the UNESCO International Commission on the Future of Education.

In the interview below, Burns discusses her recent paper which posits that to prepare for an uncertain future we must consider not only the changes that appear most probable, but also the ones that we are not expecting. Arguing the need to encourage informed dialogue on educational futures with analysis on complexity and systems thinking, she focuses and comments on the four scenarios she co-authored via the OECD. She joins the international call for insisting on education as a public good and highlights a series of tensions inherent in strategic thinking and planning for the futures of schools and schooling that must be discussed to take action now.

Watch the interview below and read the full paper here.