France’s Persistent Education Shortcomings in Mayotte
A boy looks over a school fence in the village of Bouyouni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on December 19, 2024 following the destruction caused by cyclone Chido.
© 2024 DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
Ismael K., 15, lives in an informal settlement in Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte. “We leave our notebooks at school,” he told Human Rights Watch. “If it rains at home, everything gets soaked.” He lives in a banga, an informal settlement largely made up of makeshift shelters made of wood, sheet metal, or tarps. “We don’t have electricity. And water—it’s over there, far away. Every morning, we go down to the public fountain and carry it back in jerrycans.”
Ali F., his friend, added, “Life in a banga is hard. If you haven’t paid for the school lunch, you don’t eat,” he said. “It’s really hard to go to school when you’re hungry.”
Hadidja C., 16, said when she and her brother were younger, “When we were supposed to go to school, sometimes we refused because we were hungry.” She added, “To study at home, we used solar lamps or the flashlights on our cell phones.”
Mayotte, a group of islands located in the Indian Ocean northwest of Madagascar, is one of 13 overseas territories of France, all former French colonies. It is France’s poorest department and one of the most disadvantaged parts of the European Union. More than 75 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Mayotte also has the highest population growth rate in France, estimated at nearly 4 percent per year, contributing to severe strain on housing, education, and public services. Thousands of children in Mayotte live in informal settlements in makeshift dwellings lacking access to running water, electricity, or sanitation. The French government’s neglect of Mayotte is an ongoing legacy of colonialism that has left the islands persistently underdeveloped, with many of its inhabitants facing insecure housing; inadequate food, health, and social protection; and unemployment.
A prolonged drought has caused frequent water shortages, and a devastating cyclone in December 2024 inflicted widespread damage on homes, schools, and infrastructure.
Mayotte’s education system has for years faced a lack of school facilities and teacher shortages. Although education is free, compulsory between the ages of 3 and 16, and by law should be available to all children in France, a 2023 University of Paris Nanterre study found that as much as 9 percent of Mayotte’s school-age population was not in school. For those who do attend, completion rates are abysmal.
Schools are overcrowded, often operating well beyond their intended capacity. For the last two decades, many primary schools have operated on a “rotation” system, with one group of students attending class in the morning and another in the afternoon. France’s Defender of Rights, an independent national authority for the protection of rights, found in October 2023 that as many as 15,000 children did not have access to a full school day.
Contrary to the norm in French schools, most schools in Mayotte have no canteen and do not offer full lunches, instead providing a small snack, such as yogurt, bread, and fruit. For many students, this may be the only meal of the day. Other children whose families cannot afford the fee for the snacks end up going without food at all.
Half the department’s secondary teachers are on temporary contracts and frequently lack appropriate training. Teaching is often poorly adapted to the local context and does not adequately account for the reality that French is a second language for most students. Children with disabilities receive inadequate support. Students who go on to higher education in metropolitan France or in Réunion, another Indian Ocean island that is an overseas department of France, often find that they are poorly prepared to continue their studies.
Many children, particularly those living in informal settlements and children from migrant families, face daunting obstacles to enrollment. Municipalities often demand numerous documents, far more than the French education code requires, delaying children’s entry into school and imposing extra expenses many families can ill-afford. These barriers are in part an effort to manage enrollment rates, local officials told Human Rights Watch, in violation of France’s legal obligations to ensure universal access to education.
While migration remains an integral part of Mayotte’s social fabric—shaped by historical, linguistic, religious, and familial ties with the nearby independent island nation of Comoros, which France jointly administered for nearly a century—it has, in recent years, become a source of resentment for many residents and has been politicized in ways that undermine children’s access to education and other public services
A boy looks over a school fence in the village of Bouyouni, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on December 19, 2024 following the destruction caused by cyclone Chido.
© 2024 DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
Ismael K., 15, lives in an informal settlement in Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte. “We leave our notebooks at school,” he told Human Rights Watch. “If it rains at home, everything gets soaked.” He lives in a banga, an informal settlement largely made up of makeshift shelters made of wood, sheet metal, or tarps. “We don’t have electricity. And water—it’s over there, far away. Every morning, we go down to the public fountain and carry it back in jerrycans.”
Ali F., his friend, added, “Life in a banga is hard. If you haven’t paid for the school lunch, you don’t eat,” he said. “It’s really hard to go to school when you’re hungry.”
Hadidja C., 16, said when she and her brother were younger, “When we were supposed to go to school, sometimes we refused because we were hungry.” She added, “To study at home, we used solar lamps or the flashlights on our cell phones.”
Mayotte, a group of islands located in the Indian Ocean northwest of Madagascar, is one of 13 overseas territories of France, all former French colonies. It is France’s poorest department and one of the most disadvantaged parts of the European Union. More than 75 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Mayotte also has the highest population growth rate in France, estimated at nearly 4 percent per year, contributing to severe strain on housing, education, and public services. Thousands of children in Mayotte live in informal settlements in makeshift dwellings lacking access to running water, electricity, or sanitation. The French government’s neglect of Mayotte is an ongoing legacy of colonialism that has left the islands persistently underdeveloped, with many of its inhabitants facing insecure housing; inadequate food, health, and social protection; and unemployment.
A prolonged drought has caused frequent water shortages, and a devastating cyclone in December 2024 inflicted widespread damage on homes, schools, and infrastructure.
Mayotte’s education system has for years faced a lack of school facilities and teacher shortages. Although education is free, compulsory between the ages of 3 and 16, and by law should be available to all children in France, a 2023 University of Paris Nanterre study found that as much as 9 percent of Mayotte’s school-age population was not in school. For those who do attend, completion rates are abysmal.
Schools are overcrowded, often operating well beyond their intended capacity. For the last two decades, many primary schools have operated on a “rotation” system, with one group of students attending class in the morning and another in the afternoon. France’s Defender of Rights, an independent national authority for the protection of rights, found in October 2023 that as many as 15,000 children did not have access to a full school day.
Contrary to the norm in French schools, most schools in Mayotte have no canteen and do not offer full lunches, instead providing a small snack, such as yogurt, bread, and fruit. For many students, this may be the only meal of the day. Other children whose families cannot afford the fee for the snacks end up going without food at all.
Half the department’s secondary teachers are on temporary contracts and frequently lack appropriate training. Teaching is often poorly adapted to the local context and does not adequately account for the reality that French is a second language for most students. Children with disabilities receive inadequate support. Students who go on to higher education in metropolitan France or in Réunion, another Indian Ocean island that is an overseas department of France, often find that they are poorly prepared to continue their studies.
Many children, particularly those living in informal settlements and children from migrant families, face daunting obstacles to enrollment. Municipalities often demand numerous documents, far more than the French education code requires, delaying children’s entry into school and imposing extra expenses many families can ill-afford. These barriers are in part an effort to manage enrollment rates, local officials told Human Rights Watch, in violation of France’s legal obligations to ensure universal access to education.
While migration remains an integral part of Mayotte’s social fabric—shaped by historical, linguistic, religious, and familial ties with the nearby independent island nation of Comoros, which France jointly administered for nearly a century—it has, in recent years, become a source of resentment for many residents and has been politicized in ways that undermine children’s access to education and other public services