Roger Dale speaks of a Globally Structured Agenda for Education; Stephen Ball laments the privatisation of state education; yet wherever I go, across the world, it is impossible to escape the neo-liberal agenda in education. P12 is an excellent example. Yet we must agree that conventional education in a 4-square custodial classroom has had its day, and there is a great synergy between the pragmatism of the likes of John Dewey and the new 'education for employment' agenda. If education systems could free themselves from the obsession with PISA and the reductivist arguments of Andreas Schliecher, then they could be in a much stronger position to provide a much better preparation for life in an uncertain world for our young people.