Although learning-by-discovery is being phased out of schools, the government seems prepared to accept that it is right for nursery pupils: ministers are said to have noted that in the successful education systems of Switzerland and Hungary, pupils start in the nursery with play-based education and then switch to traditional teaching at the age of six or seven.

ECONOMIST: Plowden��s progress

And, more generally, teaching is one of the few jobs that leave the summer free and offer convenient hours for parents with school-age children.

ECONOMIST: It's getting easier to change your mind and become a teacher