No schools, no children: More than a demographic problem

Schools in Greece opened their gates on Thursday and millions of pupils and students gathered for the opening ceremony as usually blessed by a local priest.

While Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis attended the ceremony at a primary school in an Athens suburb, he praised the renovation of 431 school units [note: cost donated by banks!]. However, almost double this number of school units do not open their gates in the school year 2025-2026 due to absence of students.

According to official data from the Education Ministry, a total of 714 school units (17 more than last year) across the country failed to meet the minimum required number of 15 students and are suspending their operations.

A consequence of the demographic problem in Greece that is reducing also the student population?

The problem is more complicated than just a demographic one, though.

Demographic problem vs Schools closure

Especially small villages are being deserted, the countryside has been continuously weakened with lack of important infrastructure (schools, hospitals, pharmacies etc) leading to absence of jobs and consequently to internal immigration of people, first of all of families with children.

For children living in small villages or remote islands, access to education often turns into an exhausting race, with several kilometers separating the home from the classroom, and with parents forced to make decisions that determine not only the present but also the future of their small communities.

The closure of schools threatens to empty not only classrooms, but also entire communities, disrupting the social cohesion of the Greek countryside.

Let’s not fool ourselves: School closures and mergers started in the era of the bailout agreements after 2010 with the aim to cut cost.

116 km daily trip so 6-year-old Dimitris attends school

Such an example is the Fasoulis family, in Kefalochori, Konitsa by Ioannina in north-western Greece. 6-year-old Dimitris is the only child in the village and has to start with the first grade.

However, the primary school has been closed for the last 5-6 years and the nearest classroom is in Konitsa, 40 km away.

They applied for a teacher, and just yesterday, that is a day before the official school year start, they got a document confirming that the school will open for Dimitris and a teacher will be sent there.A great relief for the family of livestock breeders.

Speaking to cnngreece.gr, the father, Thomas Fasoulis, said that had Dimitris attended the school in Konitsa he would have to cover 116 km per day by bus in order to go from village to school and back home.

Then it’s not just 80 km daily straight trip, but “one has to calculate the routes that the bus needs to travel to serve the children of the surrounding villages as well, the father stressed.

For now the problem seems to have been solved but it is not over; it is postponed for the time Dimitris will have to start with the secondary education.

“When the child reaches high school, then we will have to find a house to rent in Konitsa or Grevena for him to stay with my wife, so that he can go to school. Families are forced to live as if they were separated.”

Alternative, the family could leave their home and their income source and move to a town. And that’s not an easy solution.

“We are livestock breeders, we are involved in agro-tourism. I, 48 years old, cannot abandon the animals and leave the village. The nature of my work is very different from that of an employee in a company,” Dimitris’ father stressed.

No children, no schools vs No schools, no children

Dimitris is just one case of the education in Greece away from the towns and the big cities. Reports of dozens of closed schools came recently also from Arkadia Prefecture, in central Peloponnese, where “villages die because schools are closed” as it was written characteristically in an article of a local media of Tripolis.

Let’s not fool ourselves: the practice of school closures or mergers that force pupils to adventurous daily trips even by severe weather conditions on often damaged road network started in the era of the bailout agreements in 2010.

Official data that describe as “demographic shock” the loss of 44,000 first-grade students in 15 years. And that is exactly the period when Greece surrendered to its lenders.

And to think that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis heralded last Saturday from Thessaloniki International Fair that the tax breaks in income and property taxes aim to help families with children and young people to return to villages and start a family if they don’t have one.

He did not elaborate how exactly they will feed their families expected to solve the demographic problem of the country, if the countryside lacks of essential infrastructures to provide people with income so that they can pay their bills, first of all.