A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, has found that Japan’s spending on education was the fourth lowest share of total government expenditure among 37 member nations.
The OECD, which mainly consists of advanced economies, surveys the proportion of public spending allocated to education, such as teachers’ salaries and educational facilities’ equipment costs.
The findings show that education accounted for 8 percent of Japan’s government outlay in 2023. The figure was over three percentage points lower than the OECD members’ average of 11.5 percent. The countries ranked lower than Japan are Italy, Colombia and Greece.
Switzerland topped the list at 16.9 percent.
The report also shows that Japan’s annual public spending per student at universities and other tertiary education institutions was about half the average of OECD members, marking the tenth lowest.
Other findings show that while Japan ranked fourth in the university graduation rate at 66 percent, it had a higher tendency for parents’ academic background to affect their children’s education and offered lower scholarships than the OECD average.
The OECD says tuition is high in Japan, but public financial aid, such as scholarships, tends to be small. It points out the importance of providing support for motivated children to continue learning without being influenced by their family background.
Japan’s education ministry says higher education is a key source of national power, therefore it will make an effort to enhance prior investment in the future.