Japan Press Weekly

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2011 September 14 - 20 [EDUCATION]

Japan’s share for education lowest among OECD nations

Japan’s ratio of spending on education relative to GDP was 3.3%, the lowest among the 31 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2008. This was found in an OECD report published on September 13.

Japan was ranked at the bottom for two consecutive years. The OECD average for education expenditures was 5.0%.

The largest contributors to education were Norway (7.3%), Iceland (7.2%), and Denmark (6.5%).

The report pointed out that Japanese teachers’ salaries have been decreasing since 2005.

It also shows that citizens in Japan shared 33.6% of total education expenditure in the country, the third highest following Chile (41.4%) and South Korea (40.4%). Their share for universities and other higher education institutions was 66.7%, more than double the OECD average of 31.1%.