Germany increases public education expenditure by €5b

Public education expenditure in Germany increased by 5 billion euros over the previous year and amounted to 133.4 billion euros in 2017, official figures by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) based on provisional data of public budgets showed on Thursday.

With 66.1 billion euros, half of the education expenditure went into in schools, around 30.5 billion euros were spent on universities and 26.6 billion euros on day care facilities.

On average, approximately 5,300 euros were spent per person under 30 years for education. Based on Germany's total population, education cost per person was around 1,600 euros in 2017.

Since 2010, the largest increase was recorded in child day care with 68.7 percent. Over the last years, Germany has continuously increased the number of available places at such child day care facilities.

German universities received 35.4 percent more money while schools' budget went up by 11.9 percent. Overall, public education expenditure in Germany increased by 25.6 percent compared to 2010.

Germany is slightly above the OECD average in terms educational expenditure which was 4.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015.