The number of schoolchildren continues to fall… and regardless of the district

The trend is still downward in numbers in Parisian schools. At the end of September, the Paris academy thus had 108,500 pupils in the capital’s nursery and elementary schools, or 4,100 less than last year, indicates The Sunday Journal, in its current edition. This is less than at the start of the 2021 school year, with 6,000 fewer Parisian schoolchildren than the 2019-2020 school year, an unprecedented drop of 5%, reported France Info in October 2021.

A steeper drop than expected?

On the other hand, 4,100 is more than what the rectorate had planned, which had counted on 3,000 less Parisian students “only” for this start of the school year. All the districts of the capital are affected by this drop, continues the JDD. Or almost, because the sixth arrondissement still shows increasing numbers… of two students. The numbers are also stable in the 4th arrondissement (-0.1). But elsewhere, it is falling, including in the 13th and 17th, “two districts which, given the current real estate programs, should have resisted”, reacts the rectorate of Paris. It is in the 1st arrondissement that the decline in staff numbers is the most marked (-9.3%). The 7th (-7.6%) and the 9th (-7%) follow.

Decline in the birth rate, reduction in the rental offer and a desire for the countryside?

the JDD advances several reasons to advance this drop in enrollment in primary education which, if it is marked in Paris, is true for the whole of France with 58,000 fewer pupils overall at the start of the 2022 school year, according to the Ministry of National Education. The first is the drop in the birth rate: -0.9% in Paris in 2021 compared to 0.2 on average in mainland France. Questioned by the weekly, Patrick Bloche, deputy mayor in charge of education, also mentions “the reduction in the private rental supply” in the capital, “due to the development of seasonal rentals, real estate pressure […] or even the desire to go and live in the countryside that telework makes possible”.

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