Belgium only country that spends less on education
Experienced teachers paid significantly less
Report shows Howard`s "education neglect"
AUSTRALIA`S government spending on public education is the second lowest among developed nations, a new report has found.
Turkey, Portugal, Mexico and Iceland all spend more money on public education institutions than Australia. Only Belgium spends less.
Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard says the new OECD Education at a Glance report highlights the need for the Rudd Government`s much-hyped "education revolution".
"This new report shows that Australia performs well overall in education and training but there are some long standing areas of underperformance and underinvestment," Ms Gillard said.
"Investing in education is crucial to driving productivity growth and to building a modern and prosperous economy for the future."
Australian Education Union Federal President Angelo Gavrielatos said the OECD figures were a sad indictment of the Howard government`s neglect of schools and universities.
"The Rudd government must now take immediate and urgent steps to redress this critical underfunding to our schools," he said.
The report also shows experienced teachers in Australia are paid significantly less than the OECD average, but teach longer hours and more weeks than most OECD nations, Mr Gavrielatos said.
In 2005, just 0.1 per cent of GDP was spent on pre-primary institutions, compared to the OECD average of 0.4 per cent, ranking Australia equal 24th out of 26 countries.
Tertiary education expenditure was only 1.1 per cent of GDP, also less than the OECD average.
But Ms Gillard pointed out there was some good news, such as that eighty per cent of 25 to 34-year-old Australians have attained at least upper secondary level education, above the OECD average.
Spending on education is a long term investment and the results of current lower levels of spending will show up in years to come. This information should come as eye opener and the government should immediately step up investment in Public Educatiion before it is too late
Posted by: Manish of Melbourne 9:27pm today
See the teachers want to run the system again.
Posted by: John 9:21pm today
Way to go australia, we have the best state governments in the world.Labor of course !(state government controls education system)
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