The gap in Australia’s education system has been revealed in new research examining global schooling trends.
Government spending in Australia on private education funding was substantially higher than other developed countries, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Education at a Glance report.
Annual spending per student in private schools was about $13,700, compared with the OECD average of $11,800.
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Government funding for the Australian public primary education system was $17,360 per student per year, slightly below the $17,875 average of OECD members.
The report, released yesterday, also showed that Australia has the highest level of expenditure on private educational institutions in the OECD, at 0.7 per cent of GDP.
This is more than double the OECD average of 0.3 per cent of GDP spent on private schools.
The Australian Education Union, which represents public school teachers, said the OECD report laid bare the funding divide in Australia’s education system.
”The fact that Australia has the highest level of expenditure on private education which is more than double the OECD-wide average needs to be urgently addressed,” the union’s federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said.
She claimed the former Coalition governments from 2013 to 2022 were to blame for not fully implementing the landmark Gonksi review school funding reforms.
The OECD research also found that Australia has the worst record on First Nations student achievement when compared with Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the United States, with a 31 per cent gap between First Nations and non-Indigenous students.
The gap is almost double the next largest in Mexico.
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