{"id":464355,"date":"2026-09-08T17:39:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/08\/eurostat-in-giu-il-numero-degli-alunni-delle-elementari-nellunione-europea\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:07:09","slug":"eurostat-number-primary-school-pupils-eu-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/08\/eurostat-number-primary-school-pupils-eu-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurostat: the number of primary school pupils in the European Union falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The number of pupils attending primary schools in the European Union is falling. According to Eurostat, the EU\u2019s statistical office, in 2024,\u00a023.2 million children were enrolled in primary schools<\/a>, marking a decrease of 0.2 per cent (-35,153 pupils) compared with 2023.\u00a0Compared with 2014, however, the figure has risen by 2.9 per cent<\/strong>\u00a0(+659,086).<\/p>\n

Looking at individual Member States, the highest figure was recorded in\u00a0France<\/strong>\u00a0(4.1 million), followed by\u00a0Germany<\/strong>\u00a0(3.3 million),\u00a0Spain<\/strong>\u00a0(2.8 million) and\u00a0Italy<\/strong>\u00a0(2.6 million).\u00a0Malta<\/strong>\u00a0(27,537),\u00a0Luxembourg<\/strong>\u00a0(43,020), and\u00a0Cyprus<\/strong>\u00a0(60,596) recorded the lowest figures. According to Eurostat, \u201cthe number of pupils in primary education reflects population size, demographic structure, and differences in the typical age at which primary education begins, as well as the age at which children are expected to start compulsory formal education.\u201d\u00a0Compared with 2014, the number of pupils increased in fifteen EU Member States and decreased in the remaining eleven<\/strong>\u2014taking only those cases where data were available into account. Consequently, relative increases were observed in\u00a0Luxembourg<\/strong>\u00a0(+21.4 per cent) and in\u00a0Slovenia<\/strong>\u00a0(+18.2 per cent). Hopwever,Poland<\/strong>\u00a0(-25.7 per cent),\u00a0Croatia<\/strong>\u00a0(-10.3 per cent) and\u00a0Portugal<\/strong>\u00a0(-10.0 per cent) recorded decreases.\u00a0Over a ten-year period\u2014from 2014 to 2024\u2014in Italy, the number of pupils fell from 2.8 million to 2.6 million, a reduction of around 267,000 children.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2024, there was an average of 13.3 pupils\u00a0per teacher across the EU.\u00a0This figure is defined by the Agency as the\u00a0\u00a0and is calculated by dividing the number of pupils and students at each level of education by the number of full-time teachers.\u00a0Taking this into account, in 2024,\u00a0Greece<\/strong>\u00a0(7.4) and\u00a0Luxembourg<\/strong>\u00a0(8.2) stood out for having the lowest figures, being the only EU countries with figures below ten.\u00a0Germany<\/strong>\u00a0(15.2),\u00a0the Netherlands<\/strong>\u00a0(16.3),\u00a0the Czech Republic<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0France<\/strong>\u00a0(both 17.9), and\u00a0Romania<\/strong>\u00a0(18.2) all reported ratios above 15.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Compared with 2014, the pupil-teacher ratio at EU level fell from 14.2 to 13.3 in 2024. The same trend was observed in twenty-three EU Member States, with the most significant decreases in\u00a0Bulgaria<\/strong>\u00a0(from 17.8 to 10.4) and\u00a0Slovenia<\/strong>\u00a0(from 15.9 to 10.8). In\u00a0Austria<\/strong>, the ratio remained unchanged at 12.0. The other countries recorded increases, particularly\u00a0Lithuania<\/strong>, which rose from 10.2 to 13.7. In Italy, the figure fell from 12.4 to 10.5. Eurostat published these figures on the occasion of\u00a0International Literacy Day<\/span><\/a>, recognising the importance of primary school in providing the fundamental skills of reading, writing, and mathematics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

n 2024, there was a 0.2 per cent fall compared with 2023. There were 2.6 million students enrolled in Italy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":464331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705,29788],"tags":[26261,26897,26929,26944,27194,27736,35637,31425,26105,26718,32274,31100,25952,27179,28111,26870,35198,35640],"class_list":["post-464355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-diritti-en","tag-austria-en","tag-inbulgaria","tag-croatia-en","tag-cipro-en","tag-czechrepublic-en","tag-dati-statistici","tag-eurostat-en-2","tag-dati-eurostat-en","tag-greece-en","tag-lussemburgo-en","tag-malta-in-2","tag-poland-and","tag-portugal-en","tag-slovenia-en","tag-spain-en","tag-statistica-ue","tag-ufficio-statistico-dellue-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464355"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464362,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464355\/revisions\/464362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}