The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development periodically surveys teaching and learning issues (the TALIS surveys) in the most developed countries. In their 2009 report, they commented that although teacher quality is the fundamental component in high performing systems, the education sector has been slow to develop systemic approaches for the safeguarding, sharing and building of knowledge and intellectual capital underpinning practice. Despite the fact that Knowledge and Information Management practices are being developed and refined in many widespread public and private sector organisations, the education sector seems to be far behind, for example, that of medicine. Search Google for example for the concept of "translational research" i.e. research work which bridges the theory practice gap, and note the extensive work in medicine and the lack of translational research work in education. This paper highlights some of the prospects and challenges to knowledge management in two contrasting contexts: the education systems in Pakistan and that in England. Pakistan is poised to invest in the up-skilling of a million teachers. In England, the drive to improve educational standards of young people remains a consistent priority regardless of changes in government. Whilst the two countries are at different stages of development of their teacher education programmes nevertheless they face a common challenge: how to improve the quality of teaching so as to maximise the learning of school students. The paper discusses how the MESH "translational research" model, described elsewhere in this special edition, might provide a useful model for developing new forms of educational research collaboration and publishing in Pakistan. Pilot work has already started with the main goals of making educational research already undertaken in Pakistan accessible to teacher educators and serving teachers and to use online networking to collaborate with others elsewhere. The model uses communication technologies to ensure such an approach is low in cost which increases the chance of long-term sustainability.