Government spending on education
What you should know about this indicator
- We combine two data sources to extend coverage back in time. Recent data comes from UNESCO and measures general government expenditure on education (current, capital, and transfers) as a share of GDP. Historical data draws on a range of national and international records — including League of Nations yearbooks, OECD reports, and UN surveys — which vary in methodology and coverage, so earlier figures should be interpreted with some caution.
- This indicator shows the share of a country's total economic output (GDP) that is spent on education annually, reflecting the scale of education spending relative to the size of the economy.
- It covers all types of public education spending — including teacher salaries, textbooks, school maintenance, capital projects such as building classrooms, and external funding from international donors channeled through government budgets.
- A higher percentage means a larger share of national resources is allocated to education, which may indicate political commitment or policy prioritization. But it doesn't necessarily mean higher spending per student or better outcomes.
Related research and writing
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
- Recent estimates: UNESCO data measuring general government expenditure on education (current, capital, and transfers) as a percentage of GDP, including spending from central, regional, and local authorities.
- Historical data: Drawn from a range of national and international sources, including the League of Nations Statistical Yearbook, Mitchell (1962), OECD Education reports, and UN surveys. Methodologies vary across sources, so direct comparisons over long time periods should be made with caution.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Public spending on education as a share of GDP”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260622-142544/grapher/education-spending.html [online resource] (archived on June 22, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Public spending on education as a share of GDP” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved June 24, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260622-142544/grapher/education-spending.html (archived on June 22, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/education-spending.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear