In Kumanovo this year, 898 first-graders enrolled across sixteen primary schools. According to Interior Ministry records, around 1,300 children born in 2020 should have enrolled. The gap is about 400 children.

Those 400 did not vanish. They moved, along with their parents. Aleksandar Jovanovikj, head of the education department, names the cause outright - intensive emigration of families with young children. The final figures will be known towards the end of September, when seasonal workers return.

In Bitola, two schools with one pupil each

Fifty kilometres down the road the picture is sharper still. Three satellite schools in the Bitola villages of Porodin, Kanino and Dihovo are being placed on standby. Thirteen classes across eight primary schools, in the first and sixth grades, are also being consolidated.

But the figure that stays with you is a different one. In Poeshevo and Krementica the satellite schools will keep running even though each has exactly one pupil. At the parents' request. Another five satellite schools have not a single first-grader enrolled, but classes continue because there are children in the higher grades.

In the Bitola municipality, 665 first-graders enrolled. According to Interior Ministry records, there should have been 853.

The gap between births and enrolments is the most precise measure we have

This figure is worth more than any migration survey. The state knows exactly how many children were born in a given year, because it registered them. Six years later it counts how many of them sat down at a desk. The difference is the number of families who left.

Kumanovo: minus 400. Bitola: minus 188. That is two towns and one generation.

The mayor of Bitola, Toni Konjanovski, stresses that the schools are not formally closing and can start up again if pupils appear, and that the municipality is providing transport to the nearest school. The municipality says the consolidation will not cost a single teacher their job.

The wording is careful and accurate. But "standby" is a word that assumes something will wake up. For that, families have to come back, not doors to open.

The total number of pupils in Kumanovo is 12,988, which is 68 more than last year. Bitola has 6,903 pupils in primary education and 2,914 in secondary schools. So the system is not emptying out yet. What is emptying is its beginning - the first grade. And that is the part that tells you what things will look like in ten years.