This chapter summarises findings from the Future of Teaching case studies through a cross-case analysis. The analysis leads to an innovative framework comprising Aspirations for the Future of Teaching and Enablers of Change.
Co‑constructing Visions for the Future of Teaching
Abstract
While each of the Future of Teaching country studies – in Austria, Flanders (Belgium), Wales (U.K.) and Malta – was developed with and for its specific context, the scenarios co-constructed by stakeholders within each of the systems revealed striking commonalities in the hopes and priorities they expressed. These overlaps provide a valuable opportunity to look across the cases and identify shared aspirations and directions for the future of teaching, grounded in participants’ lived experiences and aspirations.
This chapter presents the results of a cross-country thematic analysis of the preferred future scenarios developed across the studies. The chapter identifies:
three Aspirations for the Future of Teaching, which capture shared long-term goals; and
four Enablers of Change, which highlight the relational and systemic conditions that can support transformation.
Each Aspiration is explored in more depth in Chapters 5, 6 and 7, through a set of Ideas for the Future of Teaching. These ideas map tangible entry points that education systems can act upon to bring each aspiration to life, supported by research and grounded in the scenarios. Each Idea is linked to two to three Actions for the Future – concrete, research-informed steps inspired by promising practices from OECD member countries that can help realise each Idea in practice. Taken together, the trio of Aspiration–Idea–Action forms a continuum: from long-term visions to near-term levers, from the more conceptual to the immediately actionable.
Together, these elements form a flexible, analytical and action-oriented framework that can guide strategic planning and development of concrete actions. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, the framework invites adaptation. It can be used to explore local challenges, connect short-term actions to long-term ambitions, and identify the actors and partnerships needed to drive change. By synthesising what participants across the studies would wish for the future of teaching, this chapter offers tools for thinking and acting collectively.
Two thematic analyses (Braun and Clarke, 2022[1]) were conducted across the twenty scenarios produced by participants in the studies, revealing a set of shared aspirations and enablers of change that together form the core of the cross-country findings.
Aspirations for the Future of Teaching
The Future of Teaching studies (OECD, 2024[2]; 2025[3]; OECD, 2025[4]; OECD, forthcoming[5]) included workshops where teachers and other education stakeholders co-created preferred scenarios for the future of teaching in their respective systems. While each country brought its own specific context and challenges, a strong degree of convergence emerged in what participants envisioned as desirable futures.
To explore this convergence, a thematic analysis was conducted across the twenty scenarios produced by the studies in Austria, Flanders, Wales and Malta. Each scenario was coded to identify its central theme, resulting in a total of eight recurring themes shared across the studies. These themes are presented within circles in Figure 2.1. Empowering teachers is an anchor point. While it was the major focus of three scenarios, it was reflected across the set of scenarios as a desire to give teachers greater influence over the design of their working environments, curriculum decisions, professional development and school development – including more time, space, and trust to shape the profession collectively.
Based on common themes identified in scenarios developed by case study participants.
Note: Coloured boxes represent the countries’ preferred future scenarios: blue for Austria, green for Wales, yellow for Flanders and grey for Malta. Each scenario is coded by country and number (e.g., A2 represents preferred future scenario 2 of the Future of Teaching study in Austria). The circles indicate the primary theme of each scenario (e.g., the main theme of the preferred future scenario 2 of the Future of Teaching study in Austria is “Empowered professionals”).
The analysis revealed that these eight thematic focal points could be clustered into three overarching “Aspirations for the Future of Teaching” (see black dotted forms in Figure 2.1), shared values and directions that transcended national contexts. These Aspirations are:
Career fulfilment: There is a clear push for teacher careers that are diverse, flexible, and aligned with personal aspirations. Participants across the studies highlighted the importance of professional growth and identity formation that responds to teachers’ varied backgrounds, experiences, and career stages. This calls for moving beyond one-size-fits-all human resources (HR) policies and towards a profession that fosters both individual fulfilment and collective expertise.
Teacher well-being: All three studies strongly emphasised the need to create conditions for sustainable, healthy teaching. This includes fair compensation and workload, but also extends to autonomy, trust, supportive school environments, and space to balance personal and professional life. Well-being was seen not as a secondary concern, but as foundational to professional engagement and retention.
Innovation for the future: Participants expressed a strong appetite for innovation – not as a top-down reform agenda, but as something driven by teachers themselves. This includes experimentation in pedagogy, collaboration across schools and sectors, and rethinking roles and responsibilities. Teachers saw themselves as active agents in reshaping the profession through innovation that emerges from practice and connects with wider system change.
Together, these Aspirations offer a shared vision for the future of teaching. These Aspirations are further developed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5, respectively.
Enablers of Change
A key insight from the Future of Teaching project is that realising the Aspirations for the Future of Teaching depends not only on what needs to change, but also on who enables that change and how relationships are structured to support it. In other words, transformation requires more than good ideas: It requires the conditions, capacities, and actors that make those ideas possible in practice.
We refer to these critical relational and systemic conditions as the “Enablers of Change”. Identified through a second thematic analysis of the 15 scenarios, these enablers are the structures, actors, and partnerships that connect the system, both horizontally (e.g. within and between schools) and vertically (e.g. between schools and policy, or schools and communities). The scenarios across all three contexts highlighted a shared belief in the need for collective responsibility in shaping the future of the teaching profession.
The following Enablers of Change emerged across the country studies:
Policymakers
Rather than being distant or top-down actors, policy makers were seen as potential levers for collaboration. Their role in shaping the structural conditions – through time, trust, and resources – is critical. When policy creates space for professional autonomy, experimentation, and shared learning, it becomes an enabler rather than a constraint.
Cross-sectoral partners
Many scenarios highlighted the importance of partnerships beyond the school, including with health and welfare services, cultural organisations, higher education, and the private sector. These actors help address complex learner needs, enrich teaching practice, and expand the professional ecosystem that surrounds schools. Working in interdisciplinary teams and cross-institutional networks was seen as essential for fostering collective capacity.
School community
Schools were frequently described not just as sites of learning, but as communities of trust, belonging, and mutual responsibility. Collaboration among teachers, between staff and students, and with families was seen as foundational to innovation and well-being. Internal professional cultures – built around shared purpose and support – enable teachers to take risks, learn from each other, and sustain motivation.
Leadership
Effective leadership within schools emerged as a key driver of change. Leadership that is distributed, future-focused, and grounded in relationships was viewed as essential for cultivating innovation, supporting teacher agency, and aligning efforts across system layers. Investing in leadership development was a recurring recommendation across country scenarios.
Together, these enablers function as the connective tissue of the system, supporting the translation of aspirations into transformative actions, and embedding them in the daily realities of schools and education systems. They will be explored in greater depth in Chapter 6.
Figure 2.2 brings together the key findings of the Future of Teaching studies, illustrating how Ideas for the Future of Teaching, when supported by the Enablers of Change, can help education systems progress towards three overarching Aspirations for the Future of Teaching. Together, they form a coherent framework for transforming teaching through systemic alignment, grounded professionalism, and contextual relevance.
Note: Material gathered as part as the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching.
This framework offers both a conceptual map and a practical guide. It recognises that transformation in teaching is neither linear nor uniform. Instead, it emerges from the dynamic interplay of vision (Aspirations), strategy (Ideas) and contextual support (Enablers) – all grounded in the everyday realities of teachers' work.
On the top, the three Aspirations for the Future of Teaching represent long-term system goals, developed through participatory scenario building in Austria, Flanders and Wales. They reflect what teachers and stakeholders hope the profession can become: More empowering, innovative, and sustaining.
On the bottom, the Ideas for the Future of Teaching offer strategic directions. These are not rigid policy prescriptions, but clusters of levers that can activate professional change. Each set of Ideas is associated with a particular Aspiration, developed through analysis of “What if…” statements, Ambition Loops, and co-constructed scenarios.
At the centre, the Enablers of Change provide the structural and relational conditions needed to make change possible. These include the role of school communities, cross-sectoral partnerships, policy makers, and leadership – each of whom can support professional growth, collaboration, and innovation.
The strength of this framework lies in its flexibility. It can be used in both directions:
From practice to aspiration: Practitioners and policy makers can start with a specific Idea – such as supporting interdisciplinary collaboration or tailoring career pathways – and consider how it might contribute to a larger Aspiration, provided the right enabling conditions are in place.
From aspiration to strategy: Alternatively, stakeholders can begin with a particular Aspirational goal – such as improving teacher well-being – and identify which Ideas and Enablers offer viable entry points for local action and strategic investment.
In both cases, the framework encourages contextualisation and system reflection. It is not a blueprint to be replicated, but an invitation to think systemically, recognising that sustainable change depends on how visions, ideas and enablers interact in each unique setting. It acknowledges the complexity of teachers’ work (Cramer, Brown and Aldridge, 2023[6]) and the need to ground change in both professional identity and system capacity.
In the following chapters, we apply this framework to explore each Aspiration in turn. For each one, we examine the associated Ideas for the Future of Teaching, illustrate how they emerged from participatory foresight, and propose entry points and actions that education systems can use to move from vision to meaningful change.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 explore each of the three Aspirations for the Future of Teaching in depth: Career fulfilment, Cultivating teacher well-being, and Bringing innovation into the classroom. Each chapter follows a common structure that builds from cross-country findings to practical implications:
1. A one-page visual summary presents the Aspiration, four Ideas for the Future of Teaching, and a set of Actions for the Future, practical suggestions to guide policy and practice.
2. Each chapter opens with a short introduction to the Aspiration and why it matters, drawing from insights across the 15 future scenarios developed in Austria, Flanders and Wales.
3. Concrete examples from the scenarios, including excerpts from “What if…” statements and Ambition Loops developed by national stakeholders that relate to the Aspiration.
4. The chapters then present four Ideas for the Future of Teaching – tangible entry points that education systems can act upon to bring each aspiration to life. Each Idea is supported by relevant research and scenario-based insights. Alongside each Idea, a set of bolded Actions highlights how it can be translated into change within schools, systems and communities.
5. A concluding section distils key takeaways and calls to action for education systems and policy makers.
Chapter 6 builds on this analysis by examining the Enablers of Change – the broader policy, cultural and institutional conditions that must be in place to make the aspirations and actions from previous chapters possible.
References
[1] Braun, V. and V. Clarke (2022), “Conceptual and design thinking for thematic analysis.”, Qualitative Psychology, Vol. 9/1, pp. 3-26, https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000196.
[6] Cramer, C., C. Brown and D. Aldridge (2023), “Meta-Reflexivity and Teacher Professionalism: Facilitating Multiparadigmatic Teacher Education to Achieve a Future-Proof Profession”, Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 74/5, pp. 467-480, https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871231162295.
[4] OECD (2025), Constructing Scenarios for the Future of Teaching in Wales, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2e0ac4e6-en.
[3] OECD (2025), Creating Scenarios for the Future of Teaching in Austria, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/73545285-en.
[2] OECD (2024), Constructing Scenarios for the Future of Teaching in Flanders, Educational Research and Innovation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b5bd68c4-en.
[5] OECD (forthcoming), Constructing Scenarios for the Future of Teaching in Malta, OECD.