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Greece continues to lag behind most EU member states in public spending on education, according to the latest Eurostat report with data for 2023.

More specifically, Greece allocated just 3.3% of its GDP to education, placing it near the bottom of the EU rankings. Only Romania, at 3.0%, recorded a lower share, while Malta followed at 3.4%.

The EU countries with the highest investment in education were Sweden which spent 6.8% of its GDP, Finland (6.3%) and Belgium (6.2%).

Overall, across the EU in 2023, public spending on education, which covers pre-primary to tertiary levels, accounted for 4.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP). According to the report, this figure did not change compared with 2022 but it did mark a slight decrease of 0.3 percentage points from 2020 (5.0%), the year with the highest level of public expenditure on education since the data collection started in 2012.

The funds Greece channels into education remain well below the EU average of 4.7%. The country’s limited public investment in education is not new. In 2022, Greece was again among the EU countries allocating the smallest share of GDP to education, ranking near the bottom of the EU list in that year also.