U.S. President Barack Obama has urged for further government funding for physical sciences.

Speaking at an annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington Monday, Obama said federal funding for the physical sciences as a portion of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is half what it was a quarter century ago. As a result, he said U.S. schools continue to trail other developed countries and, in some cases, developing countries in science and math scores.

He added that American students are outperformed in the subjects by their peers in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, England, the Netherlands and Hong Kong, among others.

Obama added that his administration plans to devote more than three percent of the nation’s GDP to research and development.