One in three primary school students has dropped out of school over the last ten years, while in secondary education their number has halved.
This is the panorama presented by the latest report of the organization “Civic Stability”, compiled based on data from the Ministry of Education and Sports and INSTAT, which highlights that the pre-university system in Albania is facing the direct consequences of the demographic crisis.
The report shows that the decline in fertility, the emigration of young families and the aging of the population are not only reflected in demographic statistics, but also in the daily life of schools.
Fewer children mean fewer students, fewer classes, school closures, and a reorganization of the entire education network, especially in rural and remote areas.
The figures are significant. In the 2014–2015 school year, 342,765 students were enrolled in public basic education, while in 2023–2024 this number had dropped to 228,833.
In a decade, the system has lost 113,932 students, or about 33% of the school population. This means that today one in three students is absent compared to ten years ago.
The situation is even more worrying in secondary education. The number of students has decreased from 125,517 in 2014–2015 to only 63,092 in 2023–2024, registering a decline of nearly 50%.
According to the report, this is related to the chain effect of declining birth rates, emigration, and young people leaving the country before completing secondary education.
The shrinking number of students has also forced the reorganization of the education network. In basic education, the number of public institutions has fallen from 1,317 to 1,014, which means that 303 schools no longer function as they did a decade ago, or about 23% of them have been closed, merged or reorganized. In secondary education, the number of institutions has decreased from 381 to 351, a more moderate reduction of about 8%.
The report explains that the closure of schools has occurred mainly in areas with few residents, where the lack of students has forced the merging of institutions or the transportation of children to larger schools.
While this process has been more easily managed in cities, in mountainous and rural areas it has created challenges for access to education.
Another indicator of this situation are collective classes, where one teacher teaches students from different grades at the same time. Their number has decreased from 3,241 in 2015–2016 to 2,253 in 2025–2026, but they continue to be a reality in many rural areas.
The number of students studying in these classes has also been halved, dropping from 35,843 to 17,864.
The report notes that this situation also has consequences for teachers. The continued decline in the school population will affect the planning of educational staff needs, the organization of classes and the distribution of teachers, while in areas where collective classes continue to function, specific teaching skills and methodologies are required, for which a complete training system is still lacking.
At the root of this development lies the decline in birth rates.
According to the report, the number of births in Albania has decreased from 35,717 in 2014 to 22,541 in 2025, or about 37% less. This means that in the coming years, the education system is expected to face increasingly younger generations of students.
The “Civic Resilience” report concludes that education cannot face this challenge alone.
According to the authors, the shrinking school population is a consequence of the demographic crisis and requires long-term policies that link education with support for young families, economic development, migration and territorial planning. Otherwise, the decline in the number of students will continue to bring school closures, reorganization of the education network and new challenges for teachers across the country. /ekofin.al
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