Large institutions in Greece require a complete restructuring, because the demographic crisis of the country threatens to destroy an important sector next year. Greek university rectors have demanded a commotion for higher education in the European country from both the state level and the academic community, because the registration figures will fall to the disastrous levels.
Regional institutions in particular are expected to have the most serious impact. The demographic collapse of Greece started for the first time in 2009 after the economic crisis that had been paralyzing the country for ten years. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority, on 118,302 births were in 2008 and last year dropped to only 62,500. This fell from 76,095 births in 2023 and 84,764 in 2020. The decrease was not helped by the accelerating external migration of young Greeks and immigrants who had settled in the country.
The demographic collapse has already forced thousands of closures and school closures in both remote areas and large urban centers, because the primary and secondary registration is shrinking annually.
University of Patras Rector Christos Bouras warned Tuesday for an approaching “collapse of the academic map because of the demographic problem.”
He noted that the registration of the first degree fell from around 115,000 children in 2010 to an expected 71,181 in 2025-a decrease of 45,000 students in just 15 years.
“The cumulative loss of young students reaches 330,000,” said Bouras, reported Ekathimerini.
This crisis will now go higher education in 2026, because students born in 2009 to 2010 completes their secondary education.
In an attempt to tackle the incoming registration deficit, universities propose to re -design their strategic approaches and update outdated academic programs. The rectors have emphasized that extensive reforms are urgently needed to prevent institutional collapse.
In 2023, the largest annual decrease in births in the European Union was registered, with 3.67 million born babies – a decrease of 5.4% compared to the 3.88 million of the previous year. This is the largest annual decrease that has been registered since 1961. The total fertility percentage in 2023 was 1.38 living births per woman in the EU, compared to 1.46 in 2022. This is considerably below the replacement level of 2.1 that is needed to maintain a stable population.
Bulgaria had the highest total fertility percentage (1.81 living births per woman), followed by France (1.66) and Hungary (1.55). The lowest fertility percentages, on the other hand, were seen in Malta (1.06 births per woman), Spain (1.12) and Lithuania (1.18). Further away, from 2022, South Korea is the country with the world’s lowest total fertility percentage, at 0.75 in 2024, with high housing costs, education and childcare as important reasons for the decrease.
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