The Decade of Change
The Decade of Change

Summary/Abstract: Tedesco (1998) claims that in “the past three decades at least, in response to the new challenges of social development, education systems have been subjected to a succession of diverging reform proposals (...)” (79). Authors of the Eurydice’s A Decade of the Reforms at Compulsory Education (...) (1996) point out that throughout “the 1980s and the early 1990s, education systems in the European Union (EU) and EFTA/EEA countries underwent numerous reforms which effected different areas and levels depending on the country concerned”. Tedesco in addition states that all the reforms, “paradoxically, have increased their (i.e. education systems’ [S. C.]) rigidity and opposition to change” (Tedesco 1998, 79). Nevertheless, Tedesco’s claim seems too courageous. It may well be that numerous reforms in certain countries produced “opposition to change”, but on the other hand, it is also true that in a number of cases changes took place simply because it was the right time for them. Although in every system of education there is a degree of rigidity and opposition to change, the real dilemma is neither whether we should start changing our education or not nor whether the push for change should come from outside or from inside the system – the real question is: is the time right for change or not? And of course there is another important issue concerning change in education – in which direction, how are we supposed to change it?

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