In this schoolyear in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a total of 274,034 students were enrolled in 1,785 primary schools, which is 5,984 students or 2.1 percent less than in the previous school year. Even more alarming is the data on the decline in the number of first-graders, which is a new indicator of the decrease in the number of inhabitants in our country, Avaz news portal reports.
Namely, in the school year of 2019/2020, 29,228 students were enrolled in the first grade, which is in relation to the 2018/2019 school year less by 5 percent, and according to new data from the Agency for Statistics of BiH.
If we take into account that the number of first-graders decreases from year to year, and that in just one year it decreases by as much as 5 percent, then it is clear that this is a large percentage that indicates the problem of population outflow and negative natural increase.
For example, in the school year 2017/2018. year, 31,182 students were enrolled in the first grade, which is in relation to the school year 2016/2017 was down by 4 percent.
This shows that this is a trend, not a coincidence, and that a similar percentage is repeated from year to year.
According to a recent research by the Institute for Development and Innovation, which was done with the support of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in BiH, 36,800 people leave BiH every year, which is a city the size of cities of Kakanj or Visoko.
In addition to departures, it is known that we record a negative rate of natural increase, ie that more people die than are born.
On the other hand, the number of retirees is constantly growing. According to the Federal Institute for Pension and Disability Insurance (PIO), 427,883 people in the Federation were entitled to an August pension. In August last year, that number was 420,071.
This means that the number of pensioners in the Federation of BiH alone increased by almost eight thousand in one year.
Pensioners are practically the only population whose number in BiH is constantly growing.
