Next time someone tells you New Zealand doesn’t spend enough on education show them this:
The amount spent isn’t necessarily a measure of success.
The quality of spending is at least as important as the quantity and it’s not just what is spent, but how and where it’s spent.
There is debate about the quality, how and where of spending. It is possible to find arguments in favour of increasing the amount that’s spent too.
But they lose some of their strength when we top the OECD for spending on public education as a percentage of public expenditure.
“There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics”
We only just beat Mexico but I bet we spend a lot more per child than they do in Mexico.
And a little further digging reveals we spend less per student than the OECD average.
Be that as it may the money invested in 21st century New Zealand school children far exceeds that which went into educating Paul Dirac, for example, who provided far larger return on the money invested in his early education than is likely from the vast majority of our current crop school boys and girls
Just goes to show massive cuts are long overdue!