Using data from the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests basic skills of 15-year-olds across many countries, the report finds that eliminating extreme underperformance in schools would lead to an extraordinary economic benefit, and schools would pay for the entire school system, says the OECD.
In high-income OECD countries, such as Australia, the benefit would be worth an average 162 per cent of current GDP.
For Australia, which PISA data shows has about 17 per cent of youth not meeting basic educational skill levels, the economic benefit of every school student achieving basis skills is calculated as worth 130 per cent of current GDP.
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