The future of Oxfordshire's education system is just one of the topics due for discussion at a special event next month.

Oxford Brookes University has joined forces with the National Education Trust to hold an Education Question Time event on Tuesday, June 17.

Dr Liz Browne, director of knowledge transfer at the university, said the evening would provide an opportunity for parents and students to meet some of the country's leading education experts.

She added: "It will give people the opportunity to talk about some of the key issues in education at the moment.

"We're inviting teachers from schools across Oxfordshire and hopefully they will bring some of their students with them. There will also be students from Brookes and educational theorists.

"We hope the event will raise a lot of debate on a variety of issues and I'm looking forward to hearing the questions that people will be putting to the panel."

Among the panel will be Brookes' vice-chancellor Janet Beer, Sally Dicketts, the principal of Oxford and Cherwell Valley College, and David Fickling, from Oxford-based publisher Random House. Dr Browne said among the "hot topics" she expected to come up would be changes to education for 14 to 19-year-olds.

Oxfordshire's poor educational attainment record was sure to feature too.

She said: "We're about to go into one of the most major reforms to secondary curriculum in almost the past 50 years, bigger than the introduction of GCSEs.

"It's part of a bigger strategy, building schools for the future, with a new philosophy about the approach to how people learn.

"I'm very excited to hear what teachers, students and current school pupils will have to say about this and hear what it will mean to the schools."

Roy Blatchford, director of the National Education Trust and former headteacher of Bicester Community College, said: "I know that Oxford has a new academy planned and it will be interesting to hear what people have to say about that.

"Everyone involved is just hoping that we get a good lively debate going."

HAVE A SAY Information gathered from this event, and others like it, will be used to assess people's attitudes towards the education system in the UK.

The National Education Trust hopes to take this information and use it to try to shape educational policy, locally, regionally and nationally. Parents are welcome to attend the event.

To put a question to the panel on the night, e-mail admin@nationaleducationtrust.net by Saturday.

The Education Question Time is at the Westminster Institute of Education, at Oxford Brookes' Harcourt Hill campus, in Botley on June 17 from 6.30pm to 8.15pm.