SARAJEVO
A new school year in Bosnia and Herzegovina started on September 2 with less pupils in classrooms than the previous year.
About 30,000 children are starting school today, 2.077 less than in the 2012/2013 academic year.
In Republika Srpska, the entity with a majority Bosnian Serb population, there are 2.6 less first graders than year before, while in the Federation, the entity with a predominant Bosniak and Bosnian Croat population, the number of first graders is nine percent lower that the prior year.
For several years, experts and teachers in Bosnia have warned authorities about the negative birth rate, alongside the issue of an increasing number of young people leaving the country, including a significant number of parents with preschoolers.
According to the available data, more than 60 percent of young people in Bosnia want to leave the country, while 15,000 have already left. One of the main reasons is the high unemployment rate.
This negative trend has already been present for several years, mirroring the number of first-graders enrolled each year.
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