OECD Criticizes Waste in Education Spending

Jon Boone:

Much of the global boom in spending on schools has been wasted by governments who have poured money into unreformed education systems, a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development said on Tuesday.

Wastage is so great that the results currently achieved by the world's pupils could be achieved with 30 per cent less finance if better teaching techniques were introduced and more efficient ways of running schools developed.

On the other hand, if resource levels were maintained, education systems could improve their results by 22 per cent if all education institutions performed at the same level of efficiency as the world's most efficient schools.

The annual Education at a Glance Report said that of all the 24 countries surveyed the US and Italy were getting the most disappointing results out of their schools despite spending some of the largest amounts on their students.

Australia, Canada and Japan were among the countries that performed more strongly than might have been expected from their level of investment in schools, when the data was corrected to take into account differences in class background.

The US is the second highest spender on educational institutions in the OECD, but only a comparatively small proportion of those resources "reach the classroom”, according to Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD's education analysis department.

However, the biggest spenders do not get the best outcomes. For example, Korea and the Netherlands have some of the most-able 15 year-olds in the world, according to international tests of their aptitude in maths, science and reading, despite having cumulative education expenditure below the OECD average.

The report said productivity in education has generally declined in recent years "because the quality of schooling has broadly remained constant, while the price of inputs has markedly increased”.

Unlike other professions, the report said, the education sector has not "reinvented itself” to improve outcomes and productivity. Instead, it has remained labour intensive and teachers' salaries tend to rise simply according to length of service and qualifications held.

Other factors responsible for the different outcomes include how many hours teaching pupils receive and the number of layers of management in a school system.

OECD:

cross OECD countries, governments are seeking policies to make education more effective while searching for additional resources to meet the increasing demand for education.

The 2007 edition of Education at a Glance enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries' performance. It provides a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators on the performance of education systems. The indicators look at who participates in education, what is spent on it and how education systems operate and at the results achieved. The latter includes indicators on a wide range of outcomes, from comparisons of student's performance in key subject areas to the impact of education on earnings and on adults' chances of employment.

The ExcelTM spreadsheets used to create the tables and charts are available via the StatLinks printed in Education at a Glance.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 19, 2007 4:00 AM
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