Wednesday September 19, 07:08 PM

Govt defends education after OECD report

Kevin Rudd has switched Labor's attack on the government to education after a comparison showed Australia spends less on public schools, universities and training than other developed nations.

Education Minister Julie Bishop dismissed the findings of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report as outdated.

She said the government was delivering record funding for education, particularly universities which had enjoyed a 31 per cent funding hike.

The OECD figures showed Australia spent 4.3 per cent of GDP on all levels of public education, compared with the average of five per cent among similar nations.

While other OECD countries increased spending on universities by 49 per cent in the decade to 2004, Australia was putting four per cent less public money into tertiary education.

Australians were the third highest spenders of private money on education, behind only Korea and the US.

Visiting a Queanbeyan high school in the NSW marginal electorate of Eden-Monaro on Wednesday, Mr Rudd said the figures proved the government had failed to put money into all levels of education - early childhood, schools, technical training and universities.

"Fail, fail, fail, fail in terms of our national government's performance on education," he said.

Labor planned to deliver an education revolution by boosting investment on early childhood education, university courses and trades training in schools.

"Our vision for the nation is to turn this country into the best-educated country in the world," Mr Rudd said.

"That means having the best-skilled workforce in the world, and you cannot achieve that endpoint when, after 11 years in office, the Howard government has delivered one failure after another in terms of overall investment in education."

But Ms Bishop said the OECD figures were old.

"These figures, again, do not take into account the huge investments that have been made in education since 2004," Ms Bishop told parliament.

This included the creation of the Higher Education Endowment Fund, expected to generate at least 0 million a year in earnings to go towards improving university buildings and research facilities.

Ms Bishop said the report showed Australia was doing better now on education than under the previous Labor government.

In 1993, total public and private spending on education was 4.9 per cent of GDP. But this rose to 5.9 per cent by 2004.

Among OECD countries, young Australians were among the most likely to attend university and could look forward to the highest levels of employment once they graduated, Ms Bishop said.

Spending on tertiary education as a percentage of GDP had jumped from 1.1 per cent in 1993 to 1.6 per cent in 2004.

Over the same period, the proportion of Australians with tertiary qualifications had more than doubled from 15 to 32 per cent.

Professor Alan Robson, who chairs the Group of Eight representing Australia's top universities, said the growth of private spending on education was worrying.

"While I think that students should make a contribution because they derive a private benefit, you have got to be careful as to what that point is," he told ABC Radio.

"I note that in the report our fees are now getting up amongst the highest in the world."

Australian Education Union national president Pat Byrne said both major political parties should take the report seriously.

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