Spending on public schools below international average

A new report has revealed Australia is spending a smaller percentage of government funding on public schools than almost any other major nation in the world.

The OECD's Education at a Glance Report shows only 71.3 per cent of funds are going to public schools – well below the OECD average of 86.1 per cent.

AEU Federal President Angelo Gavrielatos said that only Belgium and Chile spent a smaller proportion of money on public schools and only Belgium, Chile and Israel spent a higher proportion on private schools.

"The report also shows the annual spending on public schools is well below the OECD average," Mr Gavrielatos said.

"Australia is out of step with almost all other major nations when it comes to where we spend our money in school education."

"It is now clear from the work undertaken by the Federal Review of Schools Funding that our federal funding system is broken and must be replaced. The imbalance in our federal funding system is making it harder to overcome disadvantage in education and ensure that every child gets a high quality education."

"While the report finds that public schools outperform private schools when student and school SES is taken into account, it concludes that a student's background has a greater than average impact on their reading performance in Australia."

"Our primary challenge as a nation is to reduce the impact of a student's background on their educational outcomes and to lift overall performance levels. We can only do that by investing more in public schools that educate the vast majority of students with higher educational needs."

Other significant findings in the OECD Report include:

• Australian teachers are spending more time in the classroom than teachers in almost all other major nations but the salaries for experienced secondary teachers are below the OECD average.
• Australia is one of only four countries where teacher salaries did not increase in real terms between 2000 and 2009
• Total spending on all levels of education in Australia was 5.2 per cent of GDP in 2008, less than the OECD average of 5.9 per cent