in addition students are more dependent upon their parents and their parents resources when they are younger in systems that track students early parents who are more socioeconomically advantaged may be in a better position to promote their childs abilities than disadvantaged parents in systems where these decisions are taken at a later age students play a larger role in deciding their own education pathways and teachers and parents have enough information to make more objective decisions while the median age of first formal selection is years in oecd countries oecd a in finland and spain students are not separated into different tracks until the end of lower secondary education however in a few countries such as austria and germany selection takes place very early when students are just years old among the various academic selection systems tracking is the most rigid because students are taught substantially different curricula