The Federal Education Minister has taken a swipe at SA over school funding.

Productivity Commission data shows the SA Government invested $2.7 billion in schools in 2011-12 — the same year that Jay Weatherill gave up the education portfolio to become Premier.

New figures for 2015-16 show state investment in schools was about $2.66 billion — down $44.9 million.

This most recent numbers are an improvement on the $2.62 billion spent in 2014-15.

Mr Weatherill’s pre-election campaign tour in recent days has involved accusing the Liberals and Nick Xenophon of cutting education funding.

Mr Birmingham said the real cuts have come from the Weatherill Government.

“This new data reveals SA Labor has overseen some of the biggest cuts to education of any state or territory government,” he said.

SA Education Minister Susan Close says Mr Birmingham is cherry-picking his stats, and that the high spend in 2011-12 was actually because of costs associated with long service leave.

She said the fall in the figure since then was due to saving that did not impact frontline staff or students.

“What's occurred between 2011 and 2016 is an increase in [funding to] public schools in South Australia of some $374 million,” Ms Close said.

“At the same time, we've made some savings in corporate office costs. What we've done is have fewer bureaucrats and we've employed an extra 800 teachers and principals over that period.”