By Iwan Syahril.
In today’s uncertain world, students need more than exam skills — they need the tools to shape a better future. Real change comes when we lead with shared purpose, learn together through experimentation, and communicate clearly to build trust. When leadership, learning, and communication work in harmony, vision becomes action and possibility becomes progress.
By Iwan Syahril
A student in Bali once told me, “We want to learn things that help us change the world, not just pass exams.” I have heard versions of that in Nairobi, New Delhi, and New York. The challenge is not a shortage of ideas for improving education but the struggle to put those ideas into practice at a scale and speed that matter.
I believe the answer sits on three interconnected strands: collective leadership, collective learning, and strategic communication. When these work in harmony, change becomes both possible and sustainable.
1) Collective leadership anchored in shared purpose
Transforming education takes a coalition of educators, students, families, community leaders, researchers, civil society, the private sector, and governments as stewards of public trust. Before leading together, we must agree on why we are doing this. Purpose is the anchor and compass that holds us steady in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. This purpose must rise above individual agendas and speak to our shared humanity, collective wellbeing, and the future of civilization.
Our success will be judged by whether we move closer to, or further from, that purpose, in other words, whether we strengthen or weaken shared humanity and collective wellbeing. Collective leadership turns purpose into action when two basics are in place, shared values that keep equity and humanity at the center of decisions, and clear roles so responsibilities are understood and action is swift.
Start with a small, committed core and widen the circle through structured participation, such as student panels, teacher design teams, and open calls for ideas. Keep youth at the centre: if our purpose is to equip students for the future, their voices must guide the work from the start.
2) Collective learning in a VUCA world
If leadership answers who and why, learning answers how. In a VUCA world, disruption is the new normal. We will not get it right the first time. Contexts shift, assumptions are challenged, and even the best plans need to adapt. Transformation is always a work in progress, and that is how real change happens.
Collective learning requires an innovator’s mindset: experiment, adapt, embrace failure, and become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Across systems, we are rich in ideas but often poor in execution. Implementation is messy and non-linear; understanding and navigating that messiness together is critical. This is active learning, grounded in problem-solving, sharing successes and failures, and treating constraints as invitations to innovate. Positivity and energy are not extras; they drive collaboration and resilience.
Technology makes this possible at scale. Networked learning communities can connect across geographies and contexts to exchange practice in real time. Current and emerging tools can accelerate sensemaking, turn overwhelming data into understandable patterns, and convert those patterns into actionable, context specific solutions. They can offer timely, personalized analysis in simpler and more cost efficient ways than ever before.
The vision is a global web of interconnected learning communities, rooted in local realities yet united by a shared aspiration to equip students for a better future, using technology to run short problem solving sprints that connect teachers, students, and system leaders, and sharing evidence and stories openly so that useful learning travels quickly and fairly. When we learn together in this way, we shorten the distance between knowing and doing. We stop trying to avoid uncertainty and learn to work with it, turning today’s volatility into momentum for a better tomorrow.
3) Strategic communication, navigating the noise with purpose
Even strong evidence will stall without public trust and belief. Earning that trust is harder now. Traditional media and social media bombard our attention with competing messages. In this noisy world, good ideas do not automatically win. They need to be heard, understood, and acted upon.
Begin with clarity. Keep messages simple, memorable, and anchored in shared purpose. Remind people why this matters, to strengthen our shared humanity, protect collective wellbeing, and equip students to shape a better future. Complexity in the work is inevitable, complexity in the message will lose the audience.
Be deliberate about amplification. Choose the right messengers, platforms, and moments, and repeat the message often enough for it to stick. Manage counter narratives with respect. Misinformation and oversimplifications will arise, especially when change disrupts entrenched interests. Do not aim to silence opposition, seek to understand it, respond with facts and empathy, and keep redirecting attention to purpose and possibility. Use stories with evidence. Pair clear data with lived experience, especially from places where change is hardest. Zero to hero stories, where schools or communities overcome deep challenges, can build belief that transformation is possible. When evidence and human stories move together, hearts shift, minds open, and a sense of shared effort grows.
Strategic communication is not an afterthought. It is the connective tissue between vision and action. In a world of constant noise, leaders who speak with clarity, consistency, and purpose will not only be heard, they will move people to act.
Turning purpose into practice
Equipping students to shape a better future will not happen by chance. It will take leaders anchored in shared purpose, communities committed to learning together, and voices that cut through the noise with clarity and conviction. These strands are interdependent. Leadership without learning becomes rigid. Learning without communication stays hidden. Communication without purpose drifts into noise.
Our measure of success is not whether we launched new programs, it is whether we moved closer to our shared purpose, strengthening humanity and collective wellbeing. In a VUCA world, that purpose is our compass. It steadies us when disruption tempts us to retreat or fragment.
The path ahead will be messy and imperfect, and always in progress. That is fine. If we lead together, learn together, and communicate together, we can turn purpose into practice and possibility into progress. The future our students deserve depends on what we choose to do now.
