Does more money provide better education?

According to the SA Education Report 2008, South Africa spends more than 5% of its Gross National Products (GDP) on education. This is above the world average. This excludes the spending on private education.

In international measurements of the quality of South African education, South Africa came last in the group of 40 countries that were included in the research. The education report states : "ALL international studies in which SA has participated in the last 12 years on a school level have ranked SA students last." 

Although South Africa spends an above average amount of money on education, the outcome is one of the worst.

In a recents study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it was found that the US is one of the countries that spends the most on education. The spending on education has grown 200% since 1970. However, the performance of US students is worse than countries that spend much less on education.

In contrast, a country like Finland spends 1/3 less on education, but consistently ranks near the top in science, reading, and math. Finland is also known as a country where pupils spend the least amount of time in school.

Research therefore seems to indicate that there is no correlation between the amount of money and time spent on education, and educational performance. It is therefore not suprinsing to find homeschooling families that spend very little money and time on formal teaching, do not perform worse that those that spend vast amounts.