By the time Scheffers retired in 1971, after 42 years of loyal service, the Education Act had wrought many changes in art education, which was also influenced by major social changes not just in the Netherlands but on a wider scale, as things shifted towards greater individualism. Some academies, most notably the Rietveld Academie under Jurriaan Schrofer, wanted to train professionals who took a critical view of society. The intention was to teach practical classes that would ‘blur boundaries’ between different departments internally, between academies, and between academies and society. By that time, art programmes were known as academies and were part of the higher professional education system, with the exception of the Rijksacademie and the Jan van Eyck Academie, which came under the auspices of the then Minister of Culture, Recreation, and Social Work (1965-1982).

Under Scheffers at least, the ‘regime’ of the ‘Stads’ as it was known retained its scholarly character and, for many years after that, the teaching still leaned heavily towards traditional crafts. His successor Lou Duysens, was unable to push through any radical modernization.