800,000 Malian children have missed out on education since conflict began in the north in 2012. But a tentative peace has reigned since January, and UNICEF’s efforts to reenroll 500,000 children and train 9,000 teachers has made a giant stride toward restarting education.
Still, the region remains troubled, and many teachers and students feel too afraid to return to class. The government has offered a $500 incentive for teachers to return to the region, but it hasn’t convinced everyone.
“Despite the measures taken by the government, many teachers have not yet resumed duty in Timbuktu,” explains Mody Abdoulaye Cissé, education director in Timbuktu.
Three quarters of schools in northern Mali were looted during the conflict, and the military at one time occupied 25% of them. Teaching materials remain scarce, and some school buildings were destroyed.
In the northeastern Kidal region, a separatist Tuareg rebel group remains in control, and schools have not reopened.
Teacher Sekou Sala Koné says that he has decided not to return to his post.
“Everybody knows that the conflict is not over,” he says. “The government is putting the lives of teachers and pupils in danger by opening schools under such conditions.”
Despite the lingering danger, the international community and educational experts are desperate for children to resume their education. As two years of schooling have been lost already, many worry that the longer schools are closed the harder it will be to get students to eventually return.
In some places teachers have been working double shifts to make up for their absent colleagues.
Oumar Touré, a teacher in Timbuktu, explains why he returned to his school: “It is the future of these poor children that we should consider,” he says. “They need us.”