The Albanian education system estimates 17.1 students per teacher in public education, ranking among the teachers with the highest workloads in Europe.

According to Eurostat data for 2018, the average number of students per teacher was 13.6 in EU countries. Romania has the highest workload of 19.5 students per teacher, followed by the Czech Republic and France with 19.2.

On the other hand the lowest teaching load per teacher is in Luxembourg with 9.0 students per teacher on average, Greece with 9.2 and Poland with 9.6 students per teacher.

This indicator has been improving in Albania in recent years due to the decrease in the number of students in schools. According to INSTAT data, in 2015 a teacher taught for an average of 18.3 students, while in 2018 where the indicator dropped to 17.4 students and in 2019 there was a teacher for 17.1 students. In the following years the indicator is expected to decline more, but from the national data there is an unfair distribution of the teaching load. In rural areas and small municipalities the number of pupils per teacher is lower than in large cities and especially in Tirana where this ratio is more than 20 students per teacher.

Also, the number of schools decreased by 35% since 1991. Albania entered the transition period with 2200 primary and high schools, while in 2018 there were 1134 schools. Approximately 150 schools were closed this year alone, as the number of students is falling alarmingly in some parts of the country.

The number of classes has been further reduced. From 37.000 classes that were in the early 1990s, there are currently about 11.000 classes. Their number has been reduced by 70% over 28 years.

The Ministry of Education stated that, since 2009, the internal migration of the population from villages and small towns to larger urban centers, emigration and the decrease in the number of births have caused schools in urban areas to have more students than in those rural.