As we hurtle through the second decade of the 21st century, the pressure for radical change to mainstream education is becoming ever more urgent, and images for what that future might look like are emerging and coalescing. But there is a problem. There is no version of this complex, exciting new world of learning that can arrive fully operational and ready to open for business on Monday morning. Redesigning Education captures the journeys of cities and countries around the world as they travel from the education systems they have to the education systems they want and need—and highlights the tools and processes they are using along the way.

The Global Education Leaders' Program, or GELP, is a partnership of teams of education system leaders and world-class organizations collaborating to transform education. Its members include some of the highest performing countries in the world and those where providing education for all is an extraordinary challenge. As a community, these teams have developed, refined and shared a compelling and –critically–actionable vision for the future of education: Education 3.0.

As Lynn Olson of the Gates Foundation, and member of the GELP Steering Group, says, "This book provides a set of practical and useful tools to help countries around the world confront one of the biggest challenges of our time: how to reinvent education for tomorrow while keeping the schools running today. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation we believe every life has equal value and every person deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life. More and more, that pathway lies through educational opportunity."

Currently 12 jurisdictions from 9 countries on 5 continents are members of GELP. Funded jointly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cisco Systems, Promethean and the Ellen Koshland Family Fund, GELP is dedicated to reimagining the future of education at a global scale.

In Redesigning Education: Shaping Learning Systems around the Globe, Innovation Unit, a non-profit based in London which leads GELP on behalf of the partnership, have teamed up with Seattle-based start-up publishers Booktrope to lay out what's been learned so far in GELP about transforming education systems to meet the learning needs of all our young people, now and in the future. The book sets out some of the processes and frameworks used in GELP, and a clear set of essential elements for successful systems change, backed up by the practical lessons of GELP jurisdictions.