13 September 2012
“Education at a Glance” this week’s report published collating education statistics from OECD countries, paints a generally favourable picture of the New Zealand commitment to education. In a surprisingly large number of the statistical evaluations New Zealand is grouped alongside Scandinavian countries. The systems in Finland which gained media attention earlier this year do not seem to have resulted in a substantially advantageous outcome according to the data collated in this report. New Zealand teachers are better paid than Finland’s although they seem to do about 25% more classroom teaching.
New Zealand seems similar to the Scandinavians in many categories. New Zealand ranks 4th (7.4%) in the percentage of GDP spent on education. Only Iceland (8.1%), Korea (8%) and Denmark (7.9%) spend more. However where Australia, Finland, Ireland and Sweden have the highest success rates in the OECD for young people with poorly-educated parents attaining a tertiary degree, New Zealand – and Canada – are the only countries with poorer results than the United States.
Although there is a report on the data for most OECD countries – there is no explanation for the absence of a New Zealand country report.
Kiwiblog itemises some of the particularly notable statistics.
www.oecd.org/education/highereducationandadultlearning/49338320.pdf
www.oecd.org/newzealand/sti-outlook-2012-new-zealand.pdf
Integrity Talking Points 