Madagascar Families Cut Food to Afford School; Millions Face Hunger-Education Trade-off

School starts September 4 in Madagascar. For millions of families, that date is not a milestone but a deadline, one that forces impossible choices between feeding children today and educating them tomorrow.

Vero, a vegetable seller in the working-class Antananarivo neighborhood of Anjezika, has not yet gathered the 150,000 ariary (approximately 30 euros) needed to enroll her three youngest children. The shortfall shows up at the dinner table. “We cut back on the food budget,” she says. “Usually we cook three kapaoka of rice, but now we cook only two. We reduce the amount.” Her two oldest children have already left school entirely, having stopped in fifth grade when the family could no longer afford tuition.

That sacrifice is not unusual. A 2025 Unicef survey found that roughly one child in two stops attending school before completing primary education in Madagascar. The pattern points to something structural, not a temporary cash-flow problem but a systemic barrier that recurs every school season and compounds across generations.

The broader economic context makes the pressure sharper this year. The Ministry of Economy and Finance reports inflation reached 9 percent in June, eroding household budgets that were already thin. For families without savings or steady income, the weeks before enrollment become a scramble.

Some households turn to akandray, an informal community savings system that pools contributions to help members meet large expenses. Claire, a mother of two, explains the logic: “If we save alone at home, the money will go toward other needs. The akandray forces you to save.” Around ten households contribute the same amount daily into a shared fund. Each Sunday, the collected sum goes to one participating family, rotating until every household has received its turn. The structure keeps money from being absorbed by daily costs and gives families a realistic path to accumulating school fees.

By contrast, others have no savings mechanism to fall back on and instead sell what they own, often at steep losses. Antoinette buys used household goods from families in need and resells them on the street. Her inventory on any given day includes clothing, beds, tables, kitchen essentials, shoes, plates, pots, and worn school bags. The margins are thin. A bag bought for 2,000 ariary (39 cents) sells for 3,000 ariary (59 cents). Some customers approach her specifically because of a household crisis. “I don’t always have money to buy, so sometimes I sell their belongings first and then pay them later,” she says.

What these individual stories share is a common arithmetic: when food, fees, and supplies compete for the same scarce funds, something has to give. For Vero’s family, it was the rice portion. For her two oldest children, it was school itself.

The question that hangs over September 4 is whether the families who manage to enroll this year will still be enrolled by the time the next school season arrives.