BERLIN, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The shortage of teachers at Germany's elementary schools is set to end in the coming decade due to lower birth rates, according to calculations published by Bertelsmann Stiftung on Thursday.

       By 2035, the country will even have 45,000 more primary school teachers than necessary to cover the minimum demand of state schools, the study has found.

       Around 738,800 babies were born in Germany in 2022, which was 7.1 percent lower than the previous year, figures provided by the Federal Statistical Office, Destatis, show.

       Though data is not yet available for the whole of 2023, the number of new births in the first 10 months was 7.5 percent lower year-on-year, according to Destatis.

       Germany's school system is struggling to compete internationally. Pupils in Germany performed worse than ever in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report 2022, which was published at the end of last year.

       Other educational assessments showed that the "performance of primary school pupils in basic skills such as reading and arithmetic is declining significantly," the Ministry of Education and Research said last month.

       "The results of the PISA study have made it abundantly clear that the pressure to act has never been greater," said Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger in December. "We urgently need a turnaround in education policy that focuses on basic skills." (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollar)

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