Turkey's education spending goes up in 2018

Turkey's education expenditures increased nearly 22% year-on-year in 2018, the country's statistical authority announced on Wednesday.

The country spent 214.6 billion Turkish liras ($44.5 billion) last year, up from 176.5 billion Turkish liras ($48.3 billion) in 2017, the Turkish Statistical Institute said.

The figure rose most for pre-primary education by 27.3% and upper secondary education with 24.3% during the same period.

The share of education spending on Turkey's GDP stood at 5.8% in 2018, compared to 5.7% a year earlier.

Public sources financed 72.9% of the education expenditure in Turkey last year. The largest amount was spent on tertiary education by public institutions, 50.1 billion Turkish liras ($10.6 billion).

The share of education expenditure by households was 20.0% in 2018.

Education spending per student stood at 9,790 liras ($2,030) last year, while the amount was 16,248 Turkish liras ($3,371) for tertiary education.