How much does France spend on education?

French high school students have been protesting for more than two weeks over conditions in schools, including overcrowded classrooms and staff shortages, and they show no sign of stopping.

The unrest began on September 21 when pupils blockaded a school in the Paris suburb of Creteil, and within a week, their protest had spread across the country with students and police clashing violently.

On September 29, the demonstrations coincided with a nationwide public sector strike, in which teachers joined other state workers against a proposed pay freeze. More than 6,100 people have since been arrested.

With the government under pressure to rein in spending as its debt rises, Al Jazeera looks at how much France invests in education, how it compares with the rest of Europe and how it measures up against what the country spends on healthcare and defence.

How much does France spend on schooling?

According to the latest data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, France’s public spending on education amounts to 5.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). That figure does not include private spending, such as school fees paid by families.

The French Ministry of National Education uses a broader measure, known as domestic expenditure on education, which counts all the money that goes into education, whether from the state, local authorities, businesses or households. As well as teaching, it covers adult and continuing training and related costs such as school meals, boarding and transport.

Spending has more than doubled since 1980, even after accounting for inflation. But the economy has grown too, so education spending’s share of GDP is lower today than it was in the mid-1990s.

Secondary education accounted for the largest share of spending at 73.7 billion euros (37 percent), followed by primary education at 60 billion euros (30 percent), higher education at 45.6 billion euros (23 percent) and adult and continuing education at 19.7 billion euros (10 percent), according to the National Education Ministry.

How much do other European countries spend on education?

Among European countries, Sweden spends the largest share of its GDP on education at 7.3 percent in 2024, followed by Iceland (7 percent) and Belgium, Estonia and Finland (6.3 percent each)

The lowest spenders are Ireland (2.7 percent), Greece (3.9 percent), Romania and Italy (4 percent each), and the United Kingdom and Spain (4.1 percent each).

At 5.1 percent, France is joint 13th, level with the Netherlands and Slovakia, and above the EU average of 4.8 percent.

But above-average spending has not shielded France from a problem affecting much of the developed world. Teacher shortages are growing across countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the OECD’s latest Education at a Glance report.

Rather than leaving posts empty, many countries are filling them with teachers who lack full qualifications. In the 2024-2025 school year, 9 percent of primary and secondary teachers across the OECD were not fully qualified.

In France, the strain is most visible in secondary schools. About 11 percent of secondary teachers are not fully qualified, compared with less than 3 percent in primary schools. Furthermore, lower secondary classes average 26 pupils, compared with 23 across the OECD.

That echoes what pupils have been saying during the latest protests: Classes are large, and absent teachers are not being replaced. Some also described dilapidated buildings, a shortage of tables and chairs and, in some schools, rodent infestations. The intense heatwaves that hit France this year exacerbated existing problems in neglected buildings, many of which have no air conditioning, students said.

Teachers also feel undervalued. Only 4 percent said their profession is valued in society, the lowest share of any country surveyed and far below the OECD average of 22 percent.

How much has spending changed?

Historical UNESCO data showed France’s education spending slipped from 5.5 percent of GDP in 2017 to 5.3 percent in 2022 although it remained the ninth-highest among 29 European countries with data. A brief rise to 5.7 percent in 2020 reflected the pandemic shrinking the economy, not extra spending.

France was one of 14 countries where the share fell. Norway and Denmark saw the steepest drops while Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic recorded the biggest rises.

What else are these nations spending on?

The protests have coincided with nationwide public sector strikes over the government’s proposed 2027 budget, which seeks 54 billion euros ($61.3bn) in savings as French President Emmanuel Macron’s government tries to rein in a large public deficit.

Unions and public sector workers object in particular to a plan to freeze state employees’ salaries, which is expected to save about 2 billion euros ($2.27bn).

Across Europe, most governments spend more on education than on defence, but healthcare takes the largest share of national income of the three, according to 2022 data from the World Bank and UNESCO.

France spent 11.9 percent of its GDP on healthcare in 2022, one of the highest shares in Europe.

Source: www.aljazeera.com