Volume 4 • Issue 2 • PP: 19–29 • 2025
Public Education Investment, Instructional Resources, and Student Achievement: Cross-National Evidence from PISA 2022 in the Context of Sustainable Development Goal 4
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All people must have access to educational opportunities which meet their needs through Sustainable Development Goal 4. The goal requires education systems to obtain sufficient funds and use their resources properly. The relationship between public education spending and student academic performance remains disputed because different countries achieve different results from their spending levels. The study employs PISA 2022 country-level scores which represent the first international assessment data published after COVID-19 to analyze public education expenditure as a GDP share together with pupil–teacher ratio and per-capita GDP in relation to student academic performance across three subjects. The study found that public education funding as percentage of GDP does not connect with PISA score results across 35 countries, showing no statistical link to tests (r = −0.095, p = 0.586). The pupil–teacher ratio serves as an effective predictor because it shows a strong negative relationship to student performance (βˆ = −4.097, R2 = 0.312, p < 0.001). A three-variable regression model which combines expenditure share with pupil–teacher ratio and GDP per capita explains 59% of cross-country score variance (R2 = 0.592). High-income economies dominate the upper achievement tier, but several upper-middle-income systems— notably Estonia and Poland—substantially outperform their GDP-predicted scores. The results show that organizations should focus their resources on developing teaching skills.
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References
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