They have certain common features. They're very personalized. They have strong support for the teachers, close links with the community and a broad and diverse curriculum, and often programs which involve students outside school as well as inside school. And they work.

What's interesting to me is, these are called alternative education. And all the evidence from around the world is, if we all did that, there'd be no need for the alternative. We have to recognize that it's a human system, and there are conditions under which people thrive, and conditions under which they don't.

A statement of creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson in a TED talk about modernizing the education system. Being effective and efficient is no longer sufficient in the complex network societies of the 21st century, passion and creativity are also needed.