The 21st-century challenge is to prepare all our children to assume a meaningful place in a high-knowledge economy and society. Our main engine of development, the public education system, was geared in the 20th century towards a different job: preparing for employment in a low-skill, low-knowledge economy. Schools performed this service well, but when the task shifted to educating the vast majority of students to standards previously achieved by a few, the engine sputtered.

This month, Trinity College Dublin and College For Every Student (CFES), a US NGO, convened educationalists to consider how to ensure all young people have the educational opportunities to help them realise their human potential, regardless of socio-economic background. Prof Paul Reville, from the Harvard graduate school of education, captured in one statement what we need to do: "stop tinkering with our old engine, and instead build a new one".

In today’s job market, a further or higher education qualification is the equivalent credential to the Leaving Certificate a generation ago. Yet in Europe, a recent McKinsey report cites skills deficit as the primary reason why nearly a quarter of young people are without jobs. The National Skills Strategy says Ireland needs a 75 per cent higher-education participation rate by 2020 to meet workforce demands. The Gates Foundation estimates that by 2020, 80 per cent of US jobs will require a college degree.

Higher education must reach millions of low-income young people who traditionally have been excluded. But across most OECD countries, access and graduation rates between low-income students and their upper income peers continue to widen. In some institutions in England and the US, children from low income backgrounds account for just one in 20 enrolments.

At a time when we need qualified, critical graduates, we are still failing to tackle the challenge of supporting all our young people through primary and secondary education. Two of the chief challenges of our school system are its “one size fits all” design and the fact that schooling accounts for about 20 per cent of a child’s waking hours. How can a system that is educating children with widely different advantages in terms of educational opportunities, and obstacles in their “out of school” lives, serve them all in the same way, with the same curriculum, and expect similar results?

What’s the solution to the problem of our sputtering education engine? Reville proposes that we design a new engine with the versatility to educate all students to a high level. This would require a reimagined conception of schooling addressing three core elements:

First, schools need to be redesigned and extended to provide education services from birth to age 26; expanded to offer the time, services and enrichment opportunities required for all students, and differentiated to meet all students where they are and provide them with the educational services they need to fully realise their potential.

Second, we must provide health and well-being supports. Children need more than academic supports to thrive. In this expanded model, health and mental health services must be comprehensive, braided with educational services and designed to support students so they are able to supply their best effort in school.

Third, we must provide out-of-school learning opportunities. Low-income children are much less likely to have such opportunities. To address this out-of-school learning gap, a more co-ordinated system of programmes and services needs to be crafted so every child has access to a full complement of extended-learning, summer and work-based opportunities. These will enrich them as learners and help them build the important skills and networks that will serve them in the future.

We need the talent of all our people to unfold and develop; we need a highly educated workforce and real opportunities for them to grow professionally. This cannot happen unless we design an education system that cultivates and develops people from all social backgrounds and creates the pathways for them to be fully engaged in our society, economy, in our world.

Cliona Hannon is director of Trinity Access Programmes, Trinity College Dublin