Much to the country’s chagrin, the German education system has been getting mediocre marks from the OECD, the world’s club of rich nations. Casting an if-looks-could-kill glance at the achievements of their Nordic colleagues, Germany’s teachers petulantly blame their prime victims: working class children and immigrant families.

Germans are now facing up to the fact that their highly selective, sort-‘em-out-young school system is instrumental in preventing social mobility. Shamed into action, some German states have been dallying with such revolutionary concepts as free kindergartens, keeping in kids in school all day and even charging modest tuition fees for university. Progress is still predictably patchy on all these fronts.

Private schools are an option to be considered across the Rhine Ruhr region.