Drawing from data gathered in South Western Madagascar in 2011, the work explores the combination of poverty and traditional gender roles as a critical factor for unequal school access among young people from semi-nomadic fishing communities. It demonstrates that from the age of early puberty, most boys would go fishing with their fathers and brothers while most girls from the same families would work at home. Contrary to the phenomenon of female marginalisation in the school system observed in many developing society contexts, both boys and girls are here marginalised. The instrument of global policy designs such as positive discrimination for girls seems ill-suited to resolve the problem. Instead, the authors call for a more tailored and context-specific approach to address the particular challenges amongst semi-nomadic fishing communities in Madagascar.