ACHIEVING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL OBJECTIVES Is it possible to achieve both equity and high quality in education? Are some countries doing it better than others? How does Australia rate?

The OECD research shows that there are only two factors which are consistently related to differences in economic growth across the OECD countries – trade exposure i.e. those countries which had opened up their trade to international trading grew faster, and human capital development i.e. those countries that increased the level of education in their population were the ones whose economies grew faster. The OECD economists conclude that if a country were to increase the level of education of their working population by one year on average, it would achieve a growth in GDP of between three and six per cent and a one per cent increase in the rate of growth of GDP (OECD, 2006).