With this work, the “Austrian Society for Policy Consultation and Development” (ÖGPP) wants to make an issue-oriented contribution to the public dialogue on changes to the Austrian education system. We have examined the EU Member States in accordance with interesting examples of successful education work (“best practices”), which is both worth of being discussed and copied and presented our findings in a concise and comprehensive manner. The work reaches from pre-school to university level and is published in two parts. This is the first part, which covers the pre-school sector up to the upper secondary level. The second part deals with the university sector.