Schooling isn't about education. This article is pretty mind-boggling: apparently, it's been a norm until now in Germany that school ends at lunchtime and the children then go home. Considering how strong the German economy has traditionally been, this raises serious questions of the degree that elementary school really is about teaching kids things (as opposed to just being a place to drop off the kids while the parents work).

Oh, and the country is now making the shift towards school in the afternoon as well, driven by - you guessed it - a need for women to spend more time actually working.