Japan's spending on education as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) is the lowest among 31 member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a comprehensive survey released in September by the OECD found.
Among the 31 of the OECD's 34 members with comparable data, the OECD found Japan spent less on public education proportionally than other developed and developing countries in the organization, coming in ahead of only the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and the Russian Federation.
Japan's 3.3 percent of GDP spent on education was a startling contrast to Norway's 7.3 percent, the highest in the group, followed by Iceland's 7.2 percent, and Denmark's 6.5 percent. The overall average of OECD countries through 2008 was 6.1 percent of GDP, almost double Japan's expenditures.