Navigating Educational Challenges in South Eastern Europe

Education is often described as the foundation of national development – but what happens when that foundation is underfunded, undervalued, and stretched thin? Across South Eastern Europe, countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo face a set of deeply interconnected educational challenges that go beyond classroom walls. Low public investment, inadequate teacher pay, outdated systems, and the push toward inclusive education all demand urgent attention. Understanding these challenges is the first step toward meaningful reform.

The funding gap: education on a tight budget 🔗

One of the most persistent structural problems in South Eastern Europe is the gap between what education needs and what governments can afford to spend. According to the World Bank and UNESCO’s Education Finance Watch, even countries that meet recommended spending targets as a share of GDP often find that absolute funding levels are still too low to guarantee adequate learning outcomes – a reality that hits lower-income economies especially hard.

In the Western Balkans, economic growth has been projected to slow to around 3 percent, with the region facing structural barriers including regulatory gaps and limited financial development. In this context, education budgets remain constrained. Countries that spend 4-6 percent of their GDP on education tend to pay better salaries and produce better outcomes, yet many South Eastern European nations struggle to consistently hit even the lower end of this benchmark. The result is a system perpetually playing catch-up – with crumbling infrastructure, outdated curricula, and a workforce that feels the economic pressure acutely.

Low teacher salaries: a profession undervalued 🔗

Perhaps no challenge is more visible – or more consequential – than the low salaries paid to teachers in the region. Teaching is a profession that shapes every other profession, yet in much of South Eastern Europe, it is chronically underpaid.

According to Eurydice data reported by Euronews, teacher salaries are at their lowest in EU member candidates in the Balkans, with annual actual salaries falling well below the European average. For context, Romania – itself a lower-wage country – reported teacher salaries of just €12,987 annually. Countries in the Balkan region fare similarly or worse. In countries like Latvia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, teachers’ average salaries sit below GDP per capita at all education levels, which significantly weakens the attractiveness of the profession.

The career progression picture is equally discouraging in parts of the region. In Albania, the salary increment over an entire career reaches just 14 percent – one of the lowest in Europe. This minimal progression, combined with low starting pay, gives talented graduates little reason to enter or remain in teaching. By contrast, countries with higher GDPs offer far more attractive remuneration, creating a clear link between economic capacity and the quality of education a nation can provide.

The teacher shortage consequence 🔗

Low pay feeds directly into teacher shortages. Across 35 European countries, teacher shortages have been identified as a core challenge, according to Eurydice’s report on teachers’ careers and well-being. In South Eastern Europe, this shortage is compounded by broader demographic pressures. The Western Balkans Six countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia – rank among the countries most affected by brain drain globally. Educated young people leave for better opportunities in Western Europe, and this includes teachers and university educators.

A study from the Skopje-based Institute for Strategic Research and Education found that 69 percent of lecturers, assistants, and researchers in North Macedonia’s higher education system would consider leaving the country for employment abroad. When educators themselves are part of the brain drain, the capacity to build and sustain quality education systems erodes quickly.

Quality education: the persistent gap between policy and practice 🔗

Beyond funding and salaries, the quality of education itself is a central concern. Research on the Western Balkans highlights persistent challenges including inadequate infrastructure, outdated curricula, and unequal access to quality education. Many schools in the region were built under previous political systems and have not been modernized to meet contemporary learning needs.

The mismatch between what is taught and what the labor market requires is also significant. Youth unemployment, combined with a shortage of skilled labor among employers, characterizes the economic situation across the Western Balkans – a direct symptom of education systems that have not kept pace with economic transformation. Vocational education and training (VET) has been identified as one area where the gap between skills taught and skills needed is especially wide.

Regional cooperation: the ERI SEE framework 🔗

Recognizing that these challenges cross borders, the region has developed collaborative mechanisms to address them. The Education Reform Initiative of South Eastern Europe (ERI SEE) brings together the ministries of education from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and the Republic of Moldova to enhance regional cooperation in education and training. Its work spans vocational education, higher education quality assurance, and the digitalization of teaching and teacher training – areas all closely tied to the quality and adaptability challenges facing the region.

This kind of regional approach makes practical sense. The social, political, and economic contexts of South Eastern European countries are closely related, meaning solutions developed collaboratively are more likely to be scalable and effective than isolated national efforts.

Inclusive education: moving from policy to classroom reality 🔗

One of the most important – and most difficult – dimensions of educational reform in South Eastern Europe is the shift toward inclusive education. This means ensuring that children with disabilities, Roma children, and other marginalized groups are not excluded from mainstream schooling but are fully supported within it.

The Council of Europe’s Regional Support for Inclusive Education project works across Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Kosovo to promote inclusive education as a reform principle that respects and caters for diversity among all learners, with a focus on those at higher risk of marginalization. The project operates through pilot schools, building practices from the ground up before informing national policy reform.

Governments across the Western Balkans have put in place ambitious inclusive education reforms resulting in systemic changes and attitudinal shifts, according to UNICEF. In Kosovo, the focus has been on teacher professional development and the creation of school inclusion teams. In Montenegro, the government has been developing a comprehensive inclusive education strategy and revising the assessment process for children with disabilities. In North Macedonia, a landmark Law on Primary Education provided the legal basis for including students with disabilities in mainstream schools, with mandatory enrolment of all such children in mainstream education beginning in the 2023/2024 school year.

The gap between law and lived experience 🔗

Despite these legislative advances, the gap between policy on paper and implementation in classrooms remains a serious concern. Experts note significant gaps in the implementation of inclusive education commitments across the region, with teacher training structures not adequately preparing educators for inclusive classrooms. In practice, there are tendencies to pursue forms of integrated rather than fully inclusive education, or to provide inclusion that is not adequately resourced.

A core problem is that changing laws is far easier than changing classroom culture and teacher practice. When teachers have not received adequate training, when support staff are scarce, and when schools lack accessible physical infrastructure, even the best-intentioned policies fall short. UNICEF calls for continuous investment in teachers, with emphasis on innovative, flexible and evidence-based approaches to professional development organized at the school level – a model that builds capacity where it is most needed: in the hands of the people who teach.

Investment and international support: turning the tide 🔗

There are positive signs that the region is not navigating these challenges alone. International organizations have stepped in with both funding and technical expertise. The European Investment Bank, through its Economic Resilience Initiative, has mobilized over €55 million for Montenegro’s education sector, with a new nationwide assessment of over 800 schools now underway to evaluate the quality, safety, and inclusiveness of school facilities.

The European Union and Council of Europe have also partnered on the Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye programme, running from 2023 to 2026, which supports Serbia and other countries in aligning education practices with European standards on democratic culture, non-discrimination, and quality learning for all. These partnerships are meaningful – but they also highlight how heavily the region still relies on external support to drive reforms that ideally should be domestically sustained.

Adaptability: the key to long-term progress 🔗

Perhaps the most important quality any education system in South Eastern Europe can develop right now is adaptability. The region’s countries vary significantly in their economic capacity, ethnic composition, political structures, and historical legacies. A one-size-fits-all approach to education reform will not work. What is needed is the ability to respond to local realities – whether that means designing curricula relevant to rural communities, training teachers for multilingual classrooms, or integrating digital tools where infrastructure allows.

Research on the Western Balkans emphasizes that the integration of modern pedagogical practices, investment in infrastructure, and inclusive policies are critical for addressing educational challenges and driving sustainable socio-economic development. These are not just education goals – they are economic and democratic ones. A well-educated population is more productive, more civically engaged, and more resilient in the face of economic and political uncertainty.

The brain drain problem illustrates the stakes clearly. It is estimated that the Western Balkans region will lose around one million youth in the coming decade, with the most educated among the most likely to leave. If education systems fail to deliver quality, relevance, and opportunity, they inadvertently become a pipeline that prepares young people – and then watches them leave.

South Eastern Europe is at a critical juncture. The political will for reform exists, international support is available, and the frameworks for inclusive, quality education are increasingly in place. What is now required is sustained investment, honest implementation, and the adaptability to make education systems work for every child in the region – regardless of their background, ability, or postcode.

What do you think? Should international funding be a long-term pillar of education reform in South Eastern Europe, or does reliance on external support risk slowing the development of domestically-driven education policy? And given the scale of brain drain in the region, what would it take for a young, educated person to choose to stay and teach in their home country?

References

1. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education/publication/education-finance-watch
2. https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca/publication/western-balkans-regular-economic-report
3. https://terratern.com/blog/where-are-teachers-paid-the-most-in-the-world/
4. https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/12/06/real-teacher-salaries-in-europe-are-down-which-countries-pay-the-highest-and-lowest-wages
5. https://www.csee-etuce.org/en/item/3337:new-eurydice-report-on-teachers-and-school-heads-salaries-and-allowances-in-europe-2021-2022
6. https://www.indire.it/en/2022/10/05/teachers-salaries-in-europe-eurydices-comparative-focus/
7. https://www.gmfus.org/news/toward-new-youth-brain-drain-paradigm-western-balkans
8. https://ecfr.eu/publication/the_way_back_brain_drain_and_prosperity_in_the_western_balkans
9. https://rgsa.openaccesspublications.org/rgsa/article/view/11020
10. https://www.intellinews.com/new-initiative-to-tackle-brain-drain-in-western-balkans-284870/
11. https://danube-region.eu/eri-see/
12. https://www.coe.int/en/web/tirana/regional-support-for-inclusive-education
13. https://www.unicef.org/eca/stories/inclusive-schools-pave-way-inclusive-societies
14. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190740924006595
15. https://www.eib.org/en/press/news/better-schools-for-all-initiative-kicks-off-a-new-chapter-in-montenegrin-education-sector
16. https://www.coe.int/en/web/belgrade/quality-education-for-all-serbia