Primary school pupils fall by 5.6% in two years

The report also found four schools across the island had recorded declines of more than 10%

The number of primary school pupils in Jersey has fallen by 5.6% in the last two years, a study group has said.

Policy Centre Jersey (PCJ) examined data from Public Health Jersey which found the number of babies born in Jersey had fallen by almost 10% in 2024 compared to the year before.

The report also found four schools across the island had recorded declines of more than 10%.

The charity said that with fewer children to teach, it was likely people would call for smaller class sizes rather than fewer schools.

It said: "Jersey has an unusual structure of primary school provision - there are 24 separate schools with an average of 254 students at each, however, six of the schools have over 350 students while nine have fewer than 200.

"There may well be a need for some restructuring particularly among the smaller schools... in practice there will be pressure for smaller class sizes rather than fewer schools."

PCJ said it was hard to see how the government could address the falling birth rate without potential "financial incentives" to encourage people to have more children.

It said: "More generally, if the high cost of living in Jersey is causing a reduction in the number of young people who might otherwise have chosen to live in Jersey to choose not to do so then this can be tackled only by measures to reduce the cost of living, specifically the cost of housing."

The government announced that it had launched a new 25-year strategy to improve the island's public infrastructure to address the island's high cost of housing and ageing infrastructure.