BAMAKO — As Mali officially launched its 2026-2027 academic year on Thursday, October 1, the dissonance between the government’s rhetoric and reality could hardly be starker. Transitional President Gen. Assimi Goïta had designated the year “Year of Education and Culture,” but the celebratory slogan collides with a brutal fact: more than 2,400 schools will not reopen their doors nationwide. The record closures have ignited a growing public debate, sharpened criticism of the junta’s strategy, and left over 730,000 children shut out of classrooms, raising urgent questions about what comes next for a generation already slipping away.
A school system under siege
Across Mali, more than one in five schools is now out of commission. This collapse is not accidental; it stems directly from the expanding reach of armed terrorist groups. Islamist katibas that reject so-called Western education have looted or torched school buildings, and in some cases converted them into makeshift shelters for thousands of internally displaced people. The map of closures traces a geography of state retreat. In the far northern Kidal region, nearly 84% of schools remain shut. In neighboring Ménaka, where Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) militants operate with impunity, 52% of schools in the academy are classified as non-functional. The picture is equally bleak in Gao and central districts 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).
The junta’s faltering promises
For the transitional authorities, who built much of their legitimacy on vows to restore national sovereignty and security, these figures amount to a stinging rebuke. Since the coups of 2020 and 2021, the junta has executed a radical geopolitical pivot, breaking with traditional partners: French Barkhane forces were expelled, the UN mission MINUSMA was pushed out, and the Algiers peace accord was abandoned. To fill the void, Bamako turned to Russian military support and Africa Corps mercenaries, formerly known as Wagner. Yet the promised swift military reconquest has turned into a series of dramatic setbacks. Despite the highly publicized recapture of Kidal in late 2023, Mali’s 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 weaknesses in the junta’s military apparatus. Far from containing the threat, this exclusively security-focused approach has triggered devastating reprisals. Terrorist groups have stepped up 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.
A fractured map of control
Today, an analysis of territorial control reveals a sovereignty in tatters. In the far north, covering Kidal, Ménaka and Taoudénit, the state retains only an essentially insular presence, confined to heavily fortified administrative centers. ISGS controls vast desert expanses 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 center, encompassing Mopti, Ségou and San, considered the beating heart of the JNIM insurgency through Katiba Macina, rural areas have almost entirely slipped from government control. Insurgents there regularly blockade entire towns such as Niono and Djenné and force the closure of public schools under threat of targeted executions of teachers. Finally, in the south and west, including Koulikoro, Sikasso and Kayes, once spared, a rapid infiltration is now underway. Sleeper cells of JNIM orchestrate economic blockades, targeting fuel and major roads, gradually strangling supplies to the capital.
A generation left waiting
Against this backdrop of general deterioration, the gap between official rhetoric and Malians’ daily reality has never been more glaring. While transitional leaders celebrate the country’s “refoundation,” access to knowledge—a fundamental right—continues to recede dramatically. Each closed school represents another ideological victory for obscurantist groups, which find in idle youth a fertile recruiting ground. The “Year of Education” proclaimed in Bamako risks becoming, for hundreds of thousands of young Malians, another lost year amid the din of weapons. As the fallout deepens, the pressing question remains: what will it take for the junta to change course, and can a generation already waiting be brought back from the brink?
