Inclusive education: the road to the future is the subject of the forty-eighth meeting of the International Conference on Education (CIE) to be held in Geneva from November 25 to 28, 2008. I believe that a genuine dialogue and a frank debate between Ministers and other education actors on this central theme and on the four related sub-themes: approaches, scope and content; public politics; systems, interfaces and transitions, and students and teachers, will be both timely and appropriate.