Policy texts construct imaginaries of the future by explicitly or implicitly criticising past policies and promoting the movement beyond the present to a more hopeful future (Lingard, 2021). Williamson (2013) claims that curriculum reforms as solutions for a different and better future are promoted through the fabrication of educational crises, disinformation, myths and half-truths. Policymakers utilize governance instruments based on past data to tame the future associated with “affectivities of risk and urgency” (Madsen, 2022). The OECD project Future of Education and Skills 2030 (hereafter Education 2030) places such affectivities under the future challenges characterised as volatile, uncertain, ambiguous and complex (VUCA) and proposes curriculum (re)design for a better future (OECD, 2020). Policymakers negotiate the meaning and legitimacy of future imaginaries, engage stakeholders and create trust through techniques of futuring (Oomen et al., 2022). Among these techniques, a presentation of “a particular storyline about the future” is utilised to identify, construct and circulate imaginaries of the future (p. 261). Such imaginaries contribute to an illusion that even an uncertain future is predictable and manageable through provided policy instruments or solutions (Nespor, 2016). The OECD is an essential actor contributing to educational transformation by composing future-oriented policies. In this paper, we focus on the OECD project Education 2030 and specifically thematic reports concerning curriculum (re)design and aim to explore storytelling about the future based on past data, country examples and comparisons. We pose the following questions: - What stories of the futures do the OECD thematic reports on curriculum (re)design issue? - How do the OECD thematic reports construct curriculum as a tool for taming these futures? To answer these questions we take inspiration from Asdal’s (2015) discussion about the modifying work of documents. We approach the OECD thematic reports as transforming rather than describing futures. Preliminary findings demonstrate that the thematic reports construct the imaginary of the future through storytelling about contemporary issues that are transformed into the imaginary of a volatile, uncertain, ambiguous and complex future. The future of the thematic reports is an entanglement of digital, social and sustainable futures. In this manner, the imaginary of an unknown and complex future is broken down into manageable stories and advice to reach prosperity in the future. Such construction of reachable, tangible goals is an important factor of governance through future imaginaries (Lewis, 2018). Moreover, through curriculum (re)design the thematic reports transform crises and challenges into opportunities of the future.

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