ABSTRACT
236Our society is rapidly changing, becoming more complex and diverse. This is also true for education. As a result, the demands made of education have increased as well. Many of the most important challenges in life are thought to be best addressed through education. The Dutch essayist Karel van het Reve has pointed out the contradiction in our thinking about education. Many of us believe that educational standards and educational practice used to be better in the past than they are now, yet we cherish the belief in progress or, as van het Reve (2003) puts it, “ schools and all the other things are always becoming better and that mankind will be better off five hundred years from now.”
