The latest Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report shows Australia struggling to keep up with most OECD countries when it comes to public school investment.
The Education at a Glance 2023 report is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. It includes data on the structure, finances, and performance of education systems across all OECD countries, as well as some accession and partner countries. It paints a picture of Australian teachers facing higher workloads, larger class sizes, and salary plateaus much earlier than in other OECD countries.
The statistics
Australia allocates 1.5 per cent of government expenditure to upper secondary education, 28.6 per cent below the OECD average.
Australia’s upper secondary education spending is 0.8 per cent of GDP, 27 per cent lower than the OECD average.
Australia’s government funding for private schools, at 0.7 per cent of GDP, exceeds the OECD average by more than double, trailing only Turkey and Colombia.
The impact
Associate Professor David Zyngier from Southern Cross University told The Bursar that his research found, “public schools equal or outperform similar SES private schools in year 12 results”.
“Similar research by others in relation to NAPLAN found a similar impact. There is no educational benefit that can be attributed to private schools,” he says. “For every taxpayer dollar gifted to private schools, one less dollar is available to be spent on public schools. We know that over 80 per cent of all disadvantaged students attend public schools. Private schools do not have to address the impacts of intergenerational poverty and disadvantage on a daily basis.”
Australia has, Professor Zyngier points out, “the most privatised education system in the OECD”. As a result, he believes underfunded education causes a knock-on effect on the Australian workforce, and the Australian people.
“We, as a country, are missing out on the contribution of potential scientists, artists, and social and business leaders, who will never receive the best possible education entitled to them,” he told The Bursar.
“We also know that for every dollar invested in early childhood education there is a return of $10 to the economy. As year 12 completion rates continue to fall, especially among disadvantaged communities, we know from research that there are serious health outcomes and productivity implications.”
Australian educators are feeling the pinch too, with teachers reportedly spending $885 per year of their own money on vital school supplies and education activities, according to a new Australian Education Union (AEU) poll.
Strategies for change
University of South Australia’s Professor Sam Sellar told The Bursar, “The OECD’s Education at a Glance 2023 report shows that Australia’s per student investment in education compares favourably to other OECD countries”.
“The problem is that we’re not investing more in the students who can benefit most,” he says.
The report shows that Australia spends $12,416 per student in public schools and $10,567 per student in private schools.
By Professor Sellar’s calculations, this means that Australian families that choose to send their children to private schools contribute more than families in most other OECD countries.
“As a result, the total support per public school student is $12,979 compared to $15,345 for private school students,” Professor Sellar told The Bursar. “Families who send their children to private schools opt to contribute to the costs of their children’s education. Australian governments then heavily subsidise some private schools with funds that would be better invested in less advantaged schools, rather than further improving schools that don’t depend on this funding to meet their students’ needs.”
Adequate funding is a fundamental building block for providing high-quality education. Investment in education as a share of GDP is a measure of the priority that countries give to education and, while Australia falls short for public school funding, government funding for private schools exceeds the OECD average by more than double at 0.7 per cent of GDP.
With Australia’s school funding model currently under consideration as part of the Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System, Professor Sellar told The Bursar that he believes the solution lies in, “Shifting the balance of school funding towards public schools to provide a fairer total investment in our students would help to make our schooling systems more equitable”.
“A good start would be to ensure that our public schools receive 100 per cent of the funding that Australian governments have already agreed to provide,” he says. “To go further, we need to commit to providing all young people with access to an excellent public school in their community and redistribute government funding to make this vision a reality.”
