New report from the OECD shows Britain is no longer first in spending as a proportion of GDP
The latest report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shows the UK has dropped from first to fourth place in the proportion of its GDP spent on education.
Education at a Glance, published today, looked at spending on primary, secondary and tertiary education using 2018 data, the TES reports.
In 2018, the UK spent on average 6.3 per cent of its GDP on education, 1.3 percentage points higher than the OECD average, the report says.
But the OECD previously reported that the UK spent 6.6 per cent of GDP on education in 2015.
State education spending has been the topic of ongoing debate for several years, with the government claiming that it is spending record amounts, while heads complain their budgets are shrinking.
The UK Statistics Authority has previously criticised the Department for Education over its presentation of school funding figures.