ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that both professionals and managers need to rehabilitate wisdom of uncertainty as a benchmark for humanisation of the field of education. Therefore, the main recommendation to managers in the field of education is that they allow students and professors time and space for Bildung. Homo economicus is the enfant terrible of our meritocratic society with its characteristic performance management. Within the field of educational science a meritocracy is defined as a social system where individual talent and effort, rather than ascriptive traits, determine individuals' placements in a social hierarchy. Children that grow up in an emotionally safe place are privileged with basic trust. This trust is a foundation on which they can build during their life course. This is what Giddens calls ontological security. The rise of New Public Management has led to an educational straightjacket of performance measures. Professors are held accountable for their performance by external standards that are forced upon them by top-down policies.
