BAMAKO — On Thursday, October 1, 2026, Mali officially opened its 2026-2027 academic year. The occasion was meant to be grand: transitional president General Assimi Goïta had declared it the “Year of Education and Culture.” But the official slogan runs headlong into a brutal truth. More than 2,400 schools will not reopen their doors nationwide — a grim record that leaves over 730,000 children without instruction and exposes the strategic dead end into which Bamako’s military government has sunk.
How schools became the frontline of a deepening insurgency
Nationwide, more than one in five schools is now out of service. This collapse is no accident. It stems directly from the steady territorial expansion of armed terrorist groups. Islamist katibas that reject so-called “Western” education loot or burn school infrastructure, or turn it into makeshift shelters for thousands of internally displaced people. The map of closures traces a geography of state abandonment. In the far northern Kidal region, nearly 84% of schools remain shut. In neighboring Ménaka, where Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) fighters operate with impunity, 52% of schools in the academy are classified as “non-functional.” The picture is no brighter in Gao, in central circles such as Mopti and Bandiagara, or in parts of Ségou and Koulikoro, now directly exposed to the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM, an Al-Qaeda affiliate).
The junta’s reversals: from sovereignty promises to strategic quagmire
For the transitional authorities, who built much of their legitimacy on promises to restore national sovereignty and security, these figures are a stinging rebuke. Since the successive coups of 2020 and 2021, the junta has made a radical geopolitical shift, breaking completely with traditional partners: expelling French Barkhane forces, ending the UN mission (MINUSMA), and tearing up the Algiers peace accord. To fill the void, Bamako turned to Russian military partnership and the Africa Corps mercenaries (formerly Wagner). Yet the promise of a swift military reconquest has turned into a series of dramatic setbacks. Despite the highly publicized recapture of Kidal in late 2023, the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and their Russian auxiliaries have bogged down in bloody wars of attrition. The resounding defeat at Tinzaouatène in summer 2024 against rebel fighters and GSIM combatants marked a decisive turning point, exposing the structural vulnerabilities of the junta’s military setup. Far from containing the threat, this purely security-focused strategy triggered devastating reprisals from terrorist groups. They 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.
Mapping the encirclement: a fragmented state
Today, an analysis of control over Malian territory reveals a sovereignty that has largely splintered. In the far north — covering Kidal, Ménaka, and Taoudénit — the state retains only an island-like presence, confined to fortified provincial capitals. ISGS controls vast desert stretches of Ménaka, imposing its law and collecting zakat from local populations, while GSIM and various regional armed groups fight over border routes with Mauritania and Algeria. In the center — including Mopti, Ségou, and San, seen as the beating heart of the GSIM insurgency through Katiba Macina — rural areas have almost entirely escaped administrative control. Insurgents regularly blockade entire towns such as Niono and Djenné, and force the closure of state schools under threat of targeted executions of teachers. Finally, in the south and west — notably Koulikoro, Sikasso, and Kayes, once spared — a rapid infiltration is now underway. Sleeper cells of GSIM orchestrate economic blockades there, targeting fuel and major roads, gradually choking supplies to the capital.
A lost generation in the making
Against this broader deterioration, the contrast between official rhetoric and daily life for Malians has never been sharper. While transitional leaders celebrate the country’s “refoundation,” access to knowledge — a fundamental right — continues to recede dramatically. Every closed school is another ideological victory for obscurantist groups, which find in idle youth a fertile recruiting ground. The “Year of Education” proclaimed in Bamako may well be remembered by hundreds of thousands of young Malians as another blank year amid the din of weapons.