Portugal spends 100 thousand euros per student from entering school to 9th grade
Expenditure per student from primary to tertiary education is below the OECD average.
Portugal spends €10,854 on each student annually, below the OECD average, according to a study that reveals that a student costs €100,000 in school up to the 9th grade.
“Spending per student from primary to higher education in Portugal is lower than the OECD average”, reveals the annual report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) “Education at a Glance 2022”, in a comparison between 36 countries, taking into account the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each country.
In 2019, Portugal spent €10,854 per student, while the OECD average was €12,353 per student, according to the document.
The study indicates that there are no major differences between the cost of a student who is in the 1st cycle or finishing high school, because an education offer in terms of curricula, teaching styles and organizational management “lead to similar patterns of expenditures”. ”.
In OECD countries, a 1st and 2nd cycle student costs an average of around 10,223 euros per year, while students from 7th to 12th grade represent an annual expense of around 11,745 euros. In Portugal, the lowest values are lower: Children up to 6th grade represent a cost of 9,264 euros, and the elderly cost 11,500 euros.
Thus, the accumulated expenditure on the education of one in a Portuguese school from entering the 1st cycle (at age six) to age 15 is 100 thousand euros (100,460 euros), which returns a student to be reduced below the OECD average (108 thousand euros).
When they reach higher education, the expense increases. In Portugal, a student represents an average cost of 12 thousand euros, which is almost three thousand euros of the average value in basic education and just over 700 euros in secondary education.
But expenditure on higher education varies widely across OECD countries. The average of 18 thousand euros, is a value driven by countries like Luxembourg, where an average student costs 50 thousand euros, it is a value like Luxembourg.
Portugal is also on the list that spends the least in the OECD, as countries have lower values than Portugal: Korea, Lithuania, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Greece.
However, looking at investment taking into account the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the differences are blurred. In 2019, OECD countries spent, on average, 4.9% of their GDP on higher education, at which point Portugal spent less than (4.8% of GDP).
Comparing public investment with private investment, compulsory education remains a field of public money in all OECD countries.
Private finance accounts represent 10% of compulsory education expenditure across the OECD and 11% in Portugal. In higher education, the share of the expenditure reached 31% in 2019 in Portugal, a value equal to the OECD average.