Poorer Australian students are 18 months behind their better-off peers at school, a report by Deloitte has found.

And regional students were on average eight months behind at school.

If academic results could be improved by 50% for poorer and Aboriginal students, the economy could get a boost of more than $200bn over 50 years, the report released on Sunday said.

However, although there were obvious benefits to improving education outcomes, there were no guidelines in place on how to achieve them, which meant more research and policy-making in education was needed.

The report found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, poorer, regional and remote students were all behind on international education benchmarks.

One of the largest factors in school performance was the quality of teaching staff, but the school governance, the classroom environment and resources were also major factors.

By targeting those, there could be uniform improvements for students, the report said.

Improving the quality of teachers could include giving better feedback to students.

The report said better education outcomes meant students would have better chances of getting good jobs which pay well, both of which would benefit the economy.

The federal education minister, Dan Tehan, said the government did not run schools or employ teachers, but was providing record funding.

“As this report makes clear, everyone in education can influence the factors at their disposal to make a positive impact on a student’s education,” he said.