No minister shall send Thier children abroad for Education again – President declares 

“No minister or government official of Madagascar shall send their children abroad for education. We are building our nation from the ground up, and this cannot be achieved with a half-hearted commitment. To take our development seriously, we must ensure equality in our educational system. No one receiving taxpayers’ money from Madagascar will be permitted to sponsor their children’s education abroad. This will not be tolerated in my government!”‌

The logic is brutally simple. If the people who run the country do not trust its schools, why should anyone else? If the children of ministers are educated in Paris while the children of farmers sit in crumbling classrooms, the system is not broken. It is working exactly as designed.

Randrianirina took power in October 2025 after Gen Z protests toppled the previous government. He has already banned ministers from holding dual citizenship or foreign passports. This directive is the next step. It closes the exit door for the elite. It forces them to invest in the system they oversee. It makes their children’s future dependent on the same schools they are responsible for fixing.

The context is not abstract. His predecessor, Andry Rajoelina, secretly acquired French citizenship to make it easier for his children to study overseas. That is the reality Randrianirina is responding to. The elite had an escape hatch. He is welding it shut.

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its public universities are underfunded. Its schools are overcrowded. The president is saying: fix them. Not from Paris. From Antananarivo.