The time when Europe competed mostly with countries that offered low-skilled work at low wages has gone. Today, countries like China and India are starting to deliver high skills at low costs.

When demand for education began to outpace supply, students were not sent home. Instead, class size and schooling hours were extended....The incentives driving these reforms forward was a plethora of merit-based learning opportunities where progress depended on what children were able to do, not where they came from.

If Europe wants to retain its competitive edge at the top of the global-value-added chain, the education system must be made more flexible, more effective and more easily accessible to a wider range of people.

They have clear objectives, well defined and clear to all stakeholders who are pursuing these objectives systematically.

In all those countries social background has much less of an impact on outcomes than it does have in a country like Germany. They are providing students with equitable opportunities.

Immigration in Europe is still considered a problem rather than an opportunity, and nowhere is that more obvious than in education.