'The future is bleak': Emigration halves the students in the Kukës district

In Letaj t Hasit, on the border between Kosovo and Albania, the director of the village's 9-year-old school, Gëzim Koka, says with despair that six more students left with their families in emigration this year. Once filled with hundreds of children, today the Letaj village school has only 79 students and loses new students every year due to emigration.

The senior teacher in the profession says that for a long time the primary classes have been teaching with collective lessons, while the decreasing number of registrations does not promise any change in the future.  "The future is bleak. We can't make a football team to play," says Koka in despair.

This area is known for high emigration to England, but in recent years, those who have not been able to cross the sea that separates the British Isles from Europe, have stayed in France, Germany or even in Hungary. The situation in Letaj, a village mined during the Kosovo War, is not isolated. Data obtained through right to information requests show that in the entire district of Kukës, 48 ​​schools were closed in the last decade, while the number of students has almost halved.

The administrative unit of Shishtavec in the municipality of Kukës seems to have suffered the heaviest blow due to immigration in this district. Here, emigration to the countries of the European Union or even further to Britain, was facilitated after the declaration of the area as a Bulgarian minority in 2017. From here, hundreds of residents were provided with Bulgarian passports and found it easier to move and find employment in the West. The demographic decline is also clearly reflected by the number of births in the seven villages of this unit with 4716 registered inhabitants.

"During the years 2019-2023, only 11 births were registered in the seven villages of this unit," says Qerim Disha, an employee of the civil status office in Shishtavec. Disha says that births in the village account for only 5% of the number of births registered by the residents of these villages abroad. "In the same period, 205 foreign births were registered by residents of these villages," he says.

Disha points out that the number of births fell drastically in 2019, when none were registered in the country. As a result, in this Administrative Unit there is a drastic decline in the number of students. Based on the data of the Kuka Education Office, it turns out that the trend of the decrease in the number of students in Shishtavec started after 2014, to suffer the biggest drop in 2023. In 2005, there were 176 education students in the school of Shishtavec 9-year-old and 140 students of secondary education, while in 2014, 96 students of 9-year education and 117 of secondary education were registered.

In 2023, only 23 students of 9-year education and 68 students of secondary school are counted in the Shishtavec school, according to the response of the Kuka Education Office. Psychologist Nebi Shyti does not have much hope that those who left Shishtaveci will return one day, while he says that the community is massively aging.

"Most of the families here in Shishtavec have two residents in the house, aged somewhere around 50 years and above, where most are in their 60s. So there are only two of them left," he says, referring to the elderly couples who are still in the village. Shyti shows that a large number of young people who left the village at a young age have neither nostalgia nor connection with their hometown, while they have married and created families abroad.

But for the education veteran of the area, researcher and writer from Shishtaveci, Zejnullah Bala, the cause of the emptying of this area is not only poverty, but also the possibility of obtaining a Bulgarian passport.

"The media presented poverty, but in fact poverty was one of the reasons. Another reason that the media has not revealed or said about the emptying of the Shishtavec area, where only old people are now left in this village, is the possibility of obtaining a passport of a member country of the European Union such as Bulgaria with which you can also travel to England and you can be employed more easily in Western countries", he says.

Bala has been living alone with his wife for years, while his sons are in Britain. He says that both of them were highly educated, but they could not find work in Albania.  "I myself am not at all satisfied that I have remained the second only at home, me and my wife, what should we do? I have no satisfaction at all," says Zejnullah Bala.

Emigration is cultivated at school

Although it suffers the biggest drop in the number of children, Shishtaveci is not the only one. Emigration has also affected other administrative units, but also the city of Kukës itself. The data obtained from the Education Offices in Kukës, Tropoja and Has show that the number of students and the number of schools is in constant decline. According to these data, ten years ago there were 18,000 students in district schools, but in 2023 the number of children in 9-year schools and high schools has dropped by 10,000. The largest decrease among the three municipalities is that of Kukës, which has lost almost half of its children.

"In 2014, the number of 9-year education students was 7996 students and 2733 high school students. While in 2023, there will be 5037 students of 9-year schools and 1543 students of high schools", it is stated in the announcement of the Education Office of Kukës.

Former local leaders say that emigration is the one that has had the greatest impact on the decline in the number of residents of the area and also of students.  "In the administrative unit of Bushtrica, it can be said that 95% of families are affected by the phenomenon of immigration. Finally, only those who do not have sons over the age of 20 are not affected. The others have all been affected," says Ramazan Tota, resident of the village, former administrator of the Administrative Unit of Bushtrica in the Municipality of Kukës.

Mynir Sula, director of the United High School of Bushtrica, told BIRN that immigration is an idea that is cultivated since school. He says that at least until 2017, this was a commonly heard refrain, with kids planning to leave as soon as they graduated from high school. "Perhaps even today there are such thoughts, but it has been restrained, it has been restrained quite a bit, and they seem to be giving importance to the school," says Sula.

The teacher makes a gender difference between those who plan to further their education and those who leave as soon as they finish high school. He says that girls are dedicated to their studies, while the majority of boys plan to leave. The situation has burdened the remaining residents of the area. They see the separation of families from immigration as a wound and a depressing situation.

"As a parent, I love the family. So, I never wanted and we never thought that the child would leave us. And you miss the child. No matter how much, maybe even with a little income, maybe even with an economy whatever it is, the more tiring it is, the only desire is to have a family", says Ramadan Drazhi, resident of the Administrative Unit of Bushtrica, at the same time also in charge of the Post Office Bushtrica.

The man says that he and his wife have been living alone for years. They have more economic opportunities and live a normal life, but in the absence of children, nothing satisfies them.

"I live normally, but nothing catches my eye. Emigration has hit the Albanian society hard by breaking up the family," says Drazhi. Meanwhile, civil society activist in Kukës Lavdrim Shehu raises the concern that beyond the mass immigration that has affected this area, young people have fallen victim to bad models by being involved in illegal activities.

"There has been a constant push this last period from not positive models, where certain young people have gone and faced, or benefited from certain systems in England by engaging in criminal activity and investing money and wealth", says Shehu.

He says that it is worrying that this type of immigration has been accepted by society, since according to Shehu, the parents know very well what kind of work the child does and have tolerated it. "This is a concern in the sociological aspects of the development of a society," concludes Shehu./BIRN