They can seek out schools specialising in the arts, sports, leadership skills, girls-only education, aboriginal culture, Mandarin, and many other alternative programmes or simply choose the schools with the best academic results.

ECONOMIST: It's not just the economy that is booming; schools are too

Specialist schools may select just a tenth of their pupils according to aptitude (and then only if their specialism is non-academic, such as sports or technology), which is lucky for weedy children who live near sports-specialist schools, but does rather stop the schools from specialising.

ECONOMIST: What they mean when they say