IN Halimzai tehsil of Mohmand, Government Primary School Yaseen Kor Kamali has around 300 students and just one teacher. One person is expected to teach several grades, multiple subjects and hundreds of children at different stages of learning. Nearby, a high school also has vacant posts for its headmaster and subject teachers. This is not an education system struggling to cope. It is a generation being asked to learn without the basic conditions for learning.

The numbers show how widespread the problem is. An annual survey by the KP Education Department found 627 government schools non-functional across the province, including 411 in the merged districts and 216 in settled areas. Teacher shortages alone were responsible for 226 of those closures. North Waziristan had 111 non-functional schools, Upper South Waziristan 99, Upper Kohistan 68, Kurram 53 and Khyber 27. The crisis is therefore not confined to Mohmand or the former tribal districts. Mohmand is the photograph. KP’s education system is the story.

The province itself estimates that about 2.6 million children remain out of school, while the 2023 census put the figure at 4.9 million. Either number points to a deeply serious education crisis. The government has declared an education emergency, launched enrolment campaigns and announced recruitment drives. Yet across KP, the reality inside many classrooms tells us what these announcements often fail to capture. A school can exist on paper, children can be enrolled and a building can stand in a........

© Pakistan Observer