Education spending

Radio NZ reports:

An annual report on education by the OECD says the Government spends more of its budget on education than any of the other 33 countries in the organisation.

The 34-nation organisation’s annual report on education published overnight tues night

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says New Zealand directed 21.2% of its public spending to education in 2009.

That was enough to push it past the previous biggest spender, Mexico, by nearly one percentage point.

The OECD average is 13%.

Yet the opposition keeps demanding more spending, when we already dedicate the largest share of govternment expenditure in the developed world to education.

Have looked at the source data. Some interesting facts:

•  Average primary teacher salary is US$41,009 vs $37,603 OECD average
• The average primary teachering hours per year have dropped from 985 in 2000 to 930 in 2010, but above OECD average of 782
• Primary student:teacher ratio has dropped from 20.6 to 16.2 – slightly above 15.7 OECD average
• Average Type A tertiary tuition fee for NZ is US$3,031
• NZ spends 57% of tertiary spend directly on institutions, well below 80% OECD average. Our 43% on allowances and loans is highest in OECD. The folly of interest free loans.
• NZ ECE spending is 1.4% of all govt expend and 0.5% of GDP – compared to OECD average of 1.1% and 0.6%.
• NZ school expenditure is 14.1% of all govt expend and 4.8% of GDP – compared to OECD average of 8.7% and 3.8%. This is top in OECD as % of govt expend and 4th top as % of GDP.
• NZ tertiary expenditure is 5.7% of all govt expend and 1.9% of GDP – compared to OECD average of 3.1% and 1.4%. This is top in OECD as % of govt expend and 5th top as % of GDP.
• NZ total education expenditure is 21.2% of all govt expend and 7.2% of GDP – compared to OECD average of 13.0% and 5.8%. This is top in OECD as % of govt expend and 5th top as % of GDP, out of 34 countries.
• NZ spending on education dropped 6.7% of GDP in 2000 to 6.0% in 2005 and in 2009 was up to 7.2%
• IN US$ PPP adjusted NZ spends $11,202 per ECE student, $6,812 per primary school student, $7,960 per secondary student and $10,619 per tertiary student. Note this is total, not govt, spending.

No one can claim we are not spending enough on education – it is the quality of the spend. I;’d rather charge inflation on student loans, and invest that into more ECE.