Head of the Center for Economic and Social Studies, Ilir Gëdeshi said that compared to the region, Albania holds the first place for students who leave.

He told Euronews Albania that it is mainly the low quality of education that pushes them to leave.

According to Gëdesh, this is a good thing when it comes to increasing capacity and quality in education because students who leave go to better universities, but studies show that 93 percent of them do not want to return.

Another reason for leaving, according to the expert, is the wider labor market that awaits them in Europe.

“Here in Albania there is a problem for those who complete their studies here, there is a discrepancy with the labor market,” said Gëdeshi.

Meanwhile, the European country most coveted by students lately is Germany.

Gëdeshi also stated that the population contraction has come from several factors that have interacted at the same time.

Decreased fertility was one of them. For this factor to be at the right pace, fertility for women had to be 2.1 and currently it is 1.6.

Gedeshi said high emigration rates are another factor. In the last 30 years, emigration has experienced an increasing trend and according to him, it is about over 1.7 million Albanians living in Europe and North America.

INSTAT reports that the population has shrunk by 1.3 percent compared to a year ago. For Gëdesh, this is a high figure, given that the emigration tendency is also high.

“2-3 years ago we measured this emigration flow of the Albanian population and the result that 52 percent of the age group 18 to 40 years old wanted to emigrate,” said Gëdeshi.