Independent rankings built from public data — every figure traceable to the body that published it.
Report year 1999Data year 1999
Government expenditure on education (% of GDP)Higher is better — rank 1 leadsPublished by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
51 editions (1971–2023), 51 to 174 countries. What share of its economy a government spends on education. ⚠ A COMMITMENT MEASURE, NOT AN OUTCOME — it says what goes in, not what comes out, and the enrolment and completion rates on this site are where the results show up. ⚠ It is a share of GDP, so a poor country can rank above a rich one while spending far less per child in absolute terms; `education-spending-per-student` is the per-child view. Treating a higher share as better is the conventional reading and the one used here, but a very high figure sometimes reflects a small or shrinking economy rather than generosity. ⚠ Editions reporting fewer than 50 countries are not written — that drops UIS’s trailing stub year, which opens with a handful of early reporters, and any thin historical year. ⚠ UIS ranks nobody, so no rank is stored; the POSITION on the statistics page is derived here by ordering the score and labelled as ours.
Government Spending on Education 1999 — UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
Cite as: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UIS Data Browser. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
UIS release 20260507-91260335. Read from the UIS API at full precision, as published — nothing is rounded here. ⚠ Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, so anything derived from it carries the same ShareAlike obligation. UIS publishes no rank, so none is stored and none is derived here.
115 rows × 3 columns · imported from the publisher’s published data file on
Select any column heading to sort by it; select it again to reverse.
| Country | ISO Code | Government expenditure on education (% of GDP) |
|---|---|---|
| Marshall Islands | MHL | 13.850 |
| Lesotho | LSO | 12.499 |
| Kiribati | KIR | 9.706 |
| Guyana | GUY | 8.561 |
| Denmark | DNK | 7.935 |
| Djibouti | DJI | 7.629 |
| Namibia | NAM | 7.131 |
| Saudi Arabia | SAU | 7.072 |
| Norway | NOR | 6.962 |
| Sweden | SWE | 6.843 |
| Cabo Verde | CPV | 6.802 |
| Cuba | CUB | 6.755 |
| Estonia | EST | 6.652 |
| New Zealand | NZL | 6.636 |
| Iceland | ISL | 6.434 |
| Micronesia | FSM | 6.425 |
| Tunisia | TUN | 6.271 |
| Israel | ISR | 6.196 |
| Vanuatu | VUT | 6.163 |
| Austria | AUT | 6.136 |
| Belarus | BLR | 6.000 |
| Finland | FIN | 5.871 |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | VCT | 5.753 |
| Latvia | LVA | 5.698 |
| Malaysia | MYS | 5.687 |
| Canada | CAN | 5.531 |
| Saint Lucia | LCA | 5.450 |
| Costa Rica | CRI | 5.394 |
| Tonga | TON | 5.381 |
| Kenya | KEN | 5.323 |
| South Africa | ZAF | 5.291 |
| Eritrea | ERI | 5.263 |
| Fiji | FJI | 5.169 |
| Mongolia | MNG | 5.146 |
| Eswatini | SWZ | 5.091 |
| Portugal | PRT | 5.047 |
| Seychelles | SYC | 4.945 |
| Jordan | JOR | 4.944 |
| Thailand | THA | 4.833 |
| Cyprus | CYP | 4.772 |
| Switzerland | CHE | 4.760 |
| Panama | PAN | 4.751 |
| Moldova | MDA | 4.663 |
| Morocco | MAR | 4.625 |
| Poland | POL | 4.574 |
| Hungary | HUN | 4.559 |
| Argentina | ARG | 4.522 |
| Italy | ITA | 4.502 |
| Netherlands | NLD | 4.500 |
| Colombia | COL | 4.441 |
| India | IND | 4.415 |
| Aruba | ABW | 4.395 |
| Qatar | QAT | 4.345 |
| Barbados | BRB | 4.341 |
| Spain | ESP | 4.264 |
| Paraguay | PRY | 4.231 |
| Iran | IRN | 4.220 |
| Azerbaijan | AZE | 4.212 |
| Ireland | IRL | 4.134 |
| Ghana | GHA | 4.110 |
| Slovakia | SVK | 4.103 |
| Kyrgyzstan | KGZ | 4.085 |
| Belize | BLZ | 4.035 |
| Dominica | DMA | 4.029 |
| Samoa | WSM | 4.016 |
| United Kingdom | GBR | 3.988 |
| Kazakhstan | KAZ | 3.893 |
| Mauritius | MUS | 3.887 |
| Rwanda | RWA | 3.858 |
| Brazil | BRA | 3.801 |
| Chile | CHL | 3.708 |
| Czechia | CZE | 3.644 |
| Ukraine | UKR | 3.618 |
| Brunei | BRN | 3.596 |
| Oman | OMN | 3.529 |
| Albania | ALB | 3.514 |
| Peru | PER | 3.441 |
| Malawi | MWI | 3.432 |
| Burundi | BDI | 3.417 |
| Japan | JPN | 3.378 |
| Mexico | MEX | 3.362 |
| Macau | MAC | 3.337 |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | KNA | 3.323 |
| South Korea | KOR | 3.250 |
| Chad | TCD | 3.228 |
| Greece | GRC | 3.148 |
| Gabon | GAB | 3.081 |
| Togo | TGO | 2.964 |
| Nicaragua | NIC | 2.924 |
| Nepal | NPL | 2.893 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | TTO | 2.756 |
| Côte d’Ivoire | CIV | 2.685 |
| Mozambique | MOZ | 2.642 |
| Pakistan | PAK | 2.611 |
| Niger | NER | 2.569 |
| El Salvador | SLV | 2.563 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | ATG | 2.525 |
| Senegal | SEN | 2.460 |
| Madagascar | MDG | 2.405 |
| Libya | LBY | 2.264 |
| Armenia | ARM | 2.235 |
| Mali | MLI | 2.232 |
| Georgia | GEO | 2.155 |
| Bangladesh | BGD | 2.133 |
| Tajikistan | TJK | 2.077 |
| Guinea-Bissau | GNB | 2.032 |
| Benin | BEN | 1.922 |
| China | CHN | 1.871 |
| Zambia | ZMB | 1.775 |
| Mauritania | MRT | 1.722 |
| Central African Republic | CAF | 1.690 |
| Guinea | GIN | 1.620 |
| Gambia | GMB | 1.565 |
| Ecuador | ECU | 1.547 |
| Monaco | MCO | 1.195 |