The finding, official and confirmed by the statistics, that the number of first-year pupils fell by 30,000 over the past decade is, in reality, even more troubling than it first appears if read not as an end point but as another milestone on Greece’s ever-worsening path towards an irreversible demographic crisis.

That crisis is reflected in the steadily declining school-age population, a trend that indirectly captures every structural flaw in Greek society, as well as every passing hardship, from the economic crisis of 2009 to 2019 to natural disasters.

The 30,000 pupils who have gradually disappeared from the enrolment lists for the first year of primary school represent only a fraction of the total losses recorded across Greek primary education as a whole.

The figure, disclosed directly by the Education Ministry, is worrying and painful, though not unexpected. The shrinking school population, meaning ever fewer enrolments in nursery and primary schools, is directly linked to the worsening of Greece’s wider demographic problem.

As for the state’s duty to provide free education to Greek children, the Education, Religious Affairs and Sports Minister, Sofia Zacharaki, insists that “even if only one child turns up in a particular area, we keep the school open, because education is an absolute duty we owe them. I’m talking about that one or two children who have no other school to attend near where they live.”

1,154 empty classrooms

Even so, the fact that 30,000 children will never enrol at a Greek school anywhere in the country can only give rise to pessimism. Based on an average of 26 pupils per class, that number of children corresponds to roughly 1,154 empty classrooms: a vast educational wasteland, a silent scholastic dystopia.

The recent public disclosure of the “lost” first-graders of the past decade caused a painful shock, at least for anyone concerned about the long-term survival of the Greek nation. Yet it is a shock that has become predictable, almost an unofficial tradition repeated every year in recent times, with each new September.

Precisely because the melancholic impression stays the same, with only the dates and figures appearing to change, the realisation that schools are emptying out is increasingly treated as something given and inescapable. Yet the reality may be even bleaker for the prospects of an ever-ageing Greece.

Care homes, not kindergartens

A closer look at the official statistics on the Greek population, with a particular focus on education, reveals some striking figures.

According to the latest periodic report from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), titled “Greece in Numbers”, a total of 729,859 children were enrolled in primary education, meaning nursery and primary schools, both state and private, in the 2023-2024 school year. Ten years earlier, in 2014-2015, the same category of pupils numbered 799,801. That means almost 70,000 pupils were lost from primary education between 2014 and 2024, a fall of 8.7% between the two reference points.

Looking more closely still, and treating nursery school as the first objective gauge of population trends, and indirectly of the birth rate, the figures show the following: in 2023-2024 there were 167,969 children in nursery school, compared with 160,201 in 2014-2015, an increase at that level. In primary school classes, however, the fall in pupil numbers followed the opposite trajectory, and sharply so. The 639,600 children recorded in 2014-2015 fell by 77,710, or 12.1%, dropping to 561,890 in 2023-2024.

Add the demographic dimension to this picture, and it emerges that Greece’s population fell by 3.1%, or around 334,000 people, between the 2011 census and the 2021 census, from 10,816,286 to 10,482,487.

The scale of the decline is even clearer when broken down by age group. Between 2011 and 2021, the number of people aged nought to nine fell by 16.3%, while, by contrast, the number of Greeks aged 80 and over rose by 31.3%.

The change in the 60 to 69 age group is also striking. In 2011, there were 1,134,045 Greeks in their sixties; by 2021, that figure had jumped dramatically, to 1,324,635.

In simple terms, the 16.8% rise in the number of people in their sixties over the decade was almost the exact mirror image of the 16.3% fall in the number of babies, infants and other young children up to the age of nine. The overall ageing of the population is plain to see, with all the negative consequences that entails, not only for education, since Greece will increasingly need more care homes and rehabilitation centres, and related services, rather than nursery and primary schools.

As the number of young people falls, moreover, the burden on them to sustain the pension system will grow heavier. In Greece in particular, this will bring not only economic consequences but also a major cultural upheaval, since Greek pensioners have traditionally been seen not as dependents but as providers for the generations that followed them.

The areas losing population

To complete the picture, it is worth looking at population change by geographical area. On this measure, Western Macedonia stands out as the region worst hit by depopulation, having lost 10.3% of its population between the two censuses, falling from 283,689 residents in 2011 to 254,595 in 2021.

Western Macedonia, whose main towns include Kastoria, Kozani, Florina and Grevena along with their surrounding villages, is followed in the depopulation rankings by Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, down 7.6%. Next come Central Greece, down 7.1%, the Peloponnese, down 6.6%, Thessaly, down 6.1%, and Epirus, down 5%, among others.

When the last census was carried out, in 2021, Storm Daniel had not yet struck. The storm went on to deal a deadly blow, chiefly to the economy and, in turn, the social fabric, of Thessaly in particular, and the collapse also dragged down the region’s education infrastructure.

According to figures presented in the media, Thessaly recorded the highest number of school closures, with 26 schools shut down or merged: 11 primary schools and 15 nursery schools.

Around 100 primary schools have been closed across Greece over the past three years because of falling pupil numbers, while three times as many schools have been downgraded, reducing the number of teaching posts. This year alone, ahead of the new school year, the education ministry was forced to close 43 nursery schools and 32 primary schools.

For its part, the government points to the efforts being made by the education ministry, in response to the concerns raised by the demographic crisis, to offset, as far as possible, its deeper negative consequences.

This includes an emphasis on expanding the teaching workforce through new hires, alongside an extensive programme to maintain, restore and upgrade existing school buildings, as well as to construct entirely new ones.

Zacharaki said in a television interview that more than 53,000 teachers were appointed between 2019 and 2026, and that around 5,300 permanent teachers joined the state education system in August alone this year.

At the same time, more than 660 ageing school buildings have already been renovated under the “Marietta Giannakou” programme, which aims to upgrade 4,000 schools across Greece by 2030.

Migration

In a striking interview with liberal.gr, Professor of Demography Vyron Kotzamanis, director of research at the Institute of Demographic Research and Studies, said that the fall in the number of first-year primary pupils is far greater than the fall in births. A number of children born in Greece six years ago are simply not showing up today as primary school pupils. The problem, he said, is therefore more complex, at least in recent years, and comes down to two factors: low birth rates and emigration.

Kotzamanis added: “Since 2010 we have seen an exodus of our young people. People aged between 25 and 50, the working-age population, are leaving Greece. Some of them have children, whom they take abroad with them. So, in my assessment, the fall in pupil numbers is roughly two-thirds down to fewer births and one-third down to emigration.”

Two deaths, one birth

The April to June 2026 edition of ELSTAT’s “Greece in Numbers” report includes a table tracking the ratio of births to deaths in Greece over the five years from 2020 to 2024. The figures for the first year covered, 2020, show that 84,764 births amounted to just 65% of the 131,025 deaths recorded that year.

In 2021, that ratio fell to 59.3%. It dropped further to 54% in 2022, recovered slightly to 55.7% in 2023, before settling at 53.9% in 2024. In other words, over five years it has become entrenched in Greece that the number of births will be, at best, only around half the number of deaths.

The education ministry has recently begun using an advanced artificial intelligence tool, the Edu-Plan system, to align and streamline the allocation of available resources, chiefly staffing, with demographic trends, so as to avoid either shortages or a surplus of teachers. Even so, while the tool allows the problem to be managed better, its underlying substance continues to worsen.

The figures undoubtedly show that the number of schools is rising, as is the number of teachers. Yet the pupil population, like the Greek population as a whole, stubbornly refuses to deviate from what appears to be a predetermined path towards eventual extinction, one that could be hastened, delayed, or even averted at the last moment, depending on how much anyone believes in miracles.

Photo: Eurokinissi