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Question

Thailand spent 15% GDP on education--60 billion dollars
India spent 13% GDP on education--100 billion dollars
Georgia spent 14% GDP on education--80 billion dollars.
(Made-up statistics)

Are the following sentences correct?

In percentage terms, Thailand spent the most money on education.
In percentage terms, Thailand spent the most amount of money on education.

Answer 1

You'd need to say

In terms of percentage of GDP, ...

"In percentage terms" doesn't say anything at all about the nature of the percentage.

Answer 2

As to the question in your title, consider country A with education spending of $1 million and a GDP of $5 million (a small country!), and county B that spends $1 billion on education, but has a GDP of $900 billion. (using U.S. usage, so 1 billion is 10⁹).

Then although country B spends 900,000 (9 × 10⁵) times more than country A, as a percentage (proportion) of its GDP, country B spends barely 0.11% (1/900), while country A spends a whopping 20% (1/5). So yes, that can happen easily, just as paying the same price for any good or service constitutes a larger proportional hit for a person of little wealth than for a person with great wealth.

A more natural way to convey your meaning is [Of the countries considered,] Thailand spends the largest share of its GDP on education.

Answer 3

OP asked if these expressions are correct:

"In percentage terms, Thailand spent the most money on education.".
"In percentage terms, Thailand spent the most amount of money on education."

These expressions are incorrect. A higher percentage of GDP spent on education does not necessarily indicate a higher absolute amount of money spent, as the GDP of each country differs significantly.

Here are a few ways to express the fact. For example, (replacing Thailand with Norway, which ranked first in terms of GDP percentage allocated to education):

1. "Norway allocated the highest percentage of its GDP to education."
2. "Norway topped the list for education spending as a percentage of GDP."
3. "Norway spent a larger portion of its GDP on education than any other country in the list."
4. "Norway had the highest proportion of GDP allocated to education."

Methods to Compare Education Expenditure Across Countries:

You can use the following methods to compare the education expenditure of countries:

1. Percentage of GDP.
This method compares the total government and private expenditure on education as a percentage of a country's GDP. A higher percentage indicates that education is a priority for the country and that it can raise enough revenue for public spending.
.
2. Percentage of total government expenditure..
This method compares the amount spent on education as a percentage of a country's total government expenditure.
.
3. Expenditure per student relative to GDP per capita..
This method compares the amount of funds available per student to a country's national income per person.
.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) indexes..
This method converts different currencies into a common currency to control for differences in price levels between economies.
The International Comparison Program (ICP) uses PPPs to publish data on the relative cost of education in different economies.

Answer 4

In percentage terms, Thailand spent the most amount of money on education.

"The most money" is more natural than "the most amount of money".

Thailand spent 15% GDP on education--60 billion dollars
India spent 13% GDP on education--100 billion dollars
Georgia spent 14% GDP on education--80 billion dollars.

In percentage terms, Thailand spent the most money on education.

Although this sentence's meaning is ultimately understandable, the ideas "in percentage terms" and "the most money" do seem to be in opposition, or at tension, at least on initial reading.

Besides, I'd change "in percentage terms" to "as a percentage".

In the end, I'd just rewrite the sentence as

• Thailand was the country that spent the greatest percentage of its GDP on education.