The subject of education could hardly be more important to any of us at this time. Over the last few years, in particular, we have seen the children's education system under threat from the ever-increasing range of demands placed upon it - as well as the volume of those demands.

Teaching and other staff are finding it more difficult than ever to fulfil their roles, with so many demands placed upon them. Children and teenagers are finding life equally difficult, with the pressure to achieve high marks in tests eclipsing the enjoyment of learning - and as a result, often interfering with their learning.

Too many children are leaving school with inadequate abilities in literacy, numeracy and other fundamental skills. Other problems are going on in our schools, too. The nature of what is being taught to children and teenagers has changed drastically, with sex education being a high-profile example. Many parents have been unaware of what is being taught, but this situation is now changing.

Awareness of the inappropriate sexualisation of children in our schools, from a young age, is now growing. This highly-charged situation will - until something changes - almost certainly result in a major disruption to the harmonious relationships between school staff and parents.

This being so, it is surely time now to take an analytical look at what, why and how children are being taught in our schools. For an increasing number of parents, the current school system is failing their children. Home schooling is one alternative parents can turn to, but for many, it's not an available option. Private tutoring costs - and the challenges of organising a programme of home education - present difficulties.

This debate - the second in a series - will explore these issues. It will also explore the wider issues of education, giving light to a much-needed new approach in how we as a society support our young people in their journey of learning. That is, potentially an approach which is more aligned to working with children's innate curiosity and enthusiasm to discover new things, as opposed to a rigid curriculum-based approach.

There is no better time than now for a debate on all these issues. Furthermore, a debate on education needs to involve the general public, the very users of the service - the parents and importantly the learners - the children and teenagers. It also needs to involve the enablers - the teachers, tutors and educationalists.

The purpose of this debate is to gain and share as many different insights and viewpoints as is possible. These insights and viewpoints will come from teachers - both inside and outside the school system - and importantly, from people like you and me. That is - the young people who may one day become parents themselves - and the parents - who were once, of course, children themselves!

Finally, one may think it's a strange thing to occur - the community coming together to debate something which is usually only in the domain of government. From many people's perspectives, however, the size of this education problem - which potentially now requires a more philosophical approach to solving the issues - is actually seen as too large a task for just 650 representative SMPs to deal with alone.