Empty classrooms on remote Greek island signal crisis across Europe

Chryssa Ntalaka’s classroom has become an object lesson in subtraction.

The sole teacher in the last school on the idyllic Greek island of Kalamos has a shorter list of students every autumn. This year, just two. On September 23, the sixth graders sat at Ntalaka’s table beneath the whiteboard, in front of rows of unused desks and benches.

When they head to middle school on Greece’s mainland next year, her school will be mothballed. Toys and picture books still sit on shelves in the nearby kindergarten since it was closed three years ago.

“Usually, teachers are placed on these islands against their wishes,” Ntalaka said. “Whereas for Kalamos there are teachers and kindergarten teachers, as far as I know, who want to come – but there are no children.”