The author initially describes several seminal and interconnected departures from the old social order which are currently happening and which are creating a new and indeed unprecedented setting for the educational process, thereby raising a series of never-before-encountered challenges for the educators. He then details how society is being transformed by the passage from the "solid" to "liquid" phase of modernity, in which all social forms melt faster than new ones can be cast, and shows the implications of these societal changes for tertiary and "deutero" learning and education. He concludes that there is a marked shift of emphasis from "teaching" to "learning." Transferring to individual students the responsibility for the composition of the teaching/learning trajectory reflects the growing unwillingness of learners to make long-term commitments that constrain the range of future options and limit the field of maneuver. Among the conspicuous effects of de-institutionalizing pressures are the "privatization" and "individualization" of the teaching-learning settings and situations, as well as a gradual yet relentless replacement of the orthodox teacher-student relationship with the supplier-client, or shopping-mall-shopper pattern. This is the social setting in which today's educators find themselves bound to operate.