There were 23.2 million pupils in primary education across the EU in 2024, slightly down on the previous year.
The total fell by 0.2% in 2024 compared with 2023, a drop of 35,153 pupils, Eurostat reported on Tuesday.
The number was still higher than a decade earlier, rising by 2.9% since 2014 — an increase of 659,086 pupils.
France had the largest number of primary school pupils in 2024 at 4.1 million, followed by Germany with 3.3 million, Spain with 2.8 million and Italy with 2.6 million.
The lowest totals were recorded in Malta (27,537), Luxembourg (43,020) and Cyprus (60,596).
Compared with 2014, pupil numbers rose in 15 EU countries and fell in 11 countries with available data.
The biggest percentage increases were in Luxembourg (+21.4%) and Slovenia (+18.2%), while the biggest declines were in Poland (-25.7%), Croatia (-10.3%) and Portugal (-10.0%).
Fewer pupils per teacher on average
Across the EU, there were an average of 13.3 primary pupils per teacher in 2024, Eurostat said.
The pupil-teacher ratio is a measure of how many pupils there are for each teacher, used to indicate the level of teaching resources in a school system.
Greece and Luxembourg had the lowest ratios in 2024, at 7.4 and 8.2 pupils per teacher respectively.
Germany (15.2), the Netherlands (16.3), Czechia and France (both 17.9) and Romania (18.2) were among the countries with ratios above 15.
At EU level, the ratio fell from 14.2 pupils per teacher in 2014 to 13.3 in 2024.
The ratio declined in 23 EU countries over the same period, with the largest drops in Bulgaria (from 17.8 to 10.4) and Slovenia (from 15.9 to 10.8).
Austria’s ratio was unchanged at 12.0 between 2014 and 2024, while Lithuania recorded one of the biggest increases, rising from 10.2 to 13.7 pupils per teacher.
