BAMAKO — As Mali officially launches its 2026-2027 academic year this Thursday, October 1, the human and economic toll of the country’s deepening security crisis is becoming impossible to ignore. More than 2,400 schools will remain closed nationwide, shutting out over 730,000 children from the classroom. The figure represents a stark indictment of the transitional government’s ability to deliver on its core promises, and it carries consequences that will reverberate through Mali’s economy and social fabric for decades to come.
An education system under siege
Nationwide, more than one in five schools is now out of service. This collapse is not accidental — it is the direct result of the steady territorial expansion of armed jihadist groups. School buildings are looted or set ablaze by Islamist katibas that reject so-called Western education, while others have been repurposed as makeshift shelters for thousands of internally displaced people.
The map of closures reveals a geography of state retreat:
- In the far northern Kidal region, nearly 84% of schools remain shut.
- In neighbouring Ménaka, where the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) operates with impunity, 52% of schools in the academy are classified as “non-functional.”
- The situation is similarly dire in Gao and central circles such as Mopti and Bandiagara, as well as parts of Ségou and Koulikoro, now directly threatened by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).
For families in these areas, the closure of a school often means the end of any realistic path out of poverty. For local economies, it means the loss of teachers’ salaries, the disappearance of a stabilizing community institution, and the erosion of the skilled workforce that future businesses will need.
A government struggling to deliver on its promises
For the transitional authorities, who built much of their legitimacy on pledges to restore national sovereignty and security, these numbers represent a devastating rebuke. Since the successive coups of 2020 and 2021, the junta has executed a radical geopolitical pivot away from traditional partners: expelling French forces from Operation Barkhane, ending the UN mission (MINUSMA), and withdrawing from the Algiers peace accord. To fill the void, Bamako turned to Russian military support and Africa Corps mercenaries (formerly Wagner).
Yet the promised rapid military reconquest has given way to a series of dramatic setbacks. Despite the highly publicized recapture of Kidal in late 2023, Malian armed forces and their Russian auxiliaries have become mired in bloody wars of attrition. The resounding defeat at Tinzaouatène in summer 2024 against rebel fighters and JNIM combatants marked a turning point, exposing structural vulnerabilities in the junta’s military strategy. Far from containing the threat, this exclusively security-focused approach has triggered devastating reprisals. Terrorist groups have intensified operations beyond their traditional northern and central strongholds, striking at the heart of state institutions — as seen in the spectacular attacks on the Faladié gendarmerie school and Bamako’s military airport in September 2024.
The shifting map of control
An analysis of territorial control today paints a picture of severely fragmented state authority. In the far north — covering Kidal, Ménaka and Taoudénit — the state maintains only an essentially insular presence, restricted to heavily fortified administrative centres. ISGS controls vast desert stretches of Ménaka, where it imposes its law and collects zakat from local populations, while JNIM and various regional armed groups vie for border routes with Mauritania and Algeria.
In the centre — including Mopti, Ségou and San, considered the beating heart of the JNIM insurgency through Katiba Macina — rural areas have almost entirely escaped government control. Insurgents impose regular blockades on entire towns such as Niono and Djenné, and force the closure of secular schools under threat of targeted executions of teachers.
In the south and west — notably Koulikoro, Sikasso and Kayes, once spared — a rapid infiltration is now underway. Dormant JNIM cells orchestrate economic blockades, targeting fuel and major road corridors in particular, gradually strangling supply lines to the capital. The economic consequences are already being felt: higher transport costs, disrupted markets, and a shrinking tax base that further weakens the state’s capacity to respond.
A lost generation and its long-term cost
Against this backdrop of general deterioration, the gap between official rhetoric and the daily reality of Malians has never been wider. While transitional leaders celebrate the “refoundation” of the country, access to knowledge — a fundamental right — continues to recede dramatically. Each closed school represents another ideological victory for obscurantist groups, which find in this idle youth a fertile recruiting ground.
The economic stakes are enormous. A generation deprived of education means a future workforce lacking basic skills, reduced productivity, and diminished prospects for growth. It also means fewer teachers, health workers, engineers and entrepreneurs — the very professionals Mali needs to build a stable and prosperous future. The “Year of Education” proclaimed in Bamako risks becoming, for hundreds of thousands of young Malians, another blank year amid the din of weapons — and a lasting drag on the nation’s economy.