Australia has been ranked 39 out of 41 high- and middle-income countries in achieving quality education, in the latest international report to find that the country is falling behind in basic measures of teaching and learning.

Only Romania and Turkey were ranked below Australia in education in the latest United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report card.

The report looks at the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, maths and science, as well as the quality and level of access to early schooling, in 41 European Union and OECD countries.

The report found that only 71.7 per cent of Australian 15-year-olds are achieving baseline standards in the three key areas of education, based on the latest PISA assessment, and only 80.3 per cent of children are attending "organised preschool learning" for at least a year, according to 2014 figures.