One of the world's leading maths educators has given Australia a poor report card for its treatment of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) education director, Barry McGaw, says Australia has among the highest performances for literacy and maths skills, but is among the worst for equity in education.

Speaking in Townsville, Dr McGraw says more needs to be done to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds strive for excellence.

"What Australia ought to be doing is trying to understand much more from its data about how these inequities are distributed and what might be the causes in order then to know what might best be done to reduce them," he said.