Let's call it what it is: K-P is abandoning its children. Not metaphorically, not in the way people toss around, 'Oh, the system is broken.' No. The system isn't broken; it's functioning exactly as it's allowed to, with chilling indifference to the rights of the most vulnerable.

A recent report by the provincial Education Department pulls no punches. Legions of children enrolled in over 10,000 public schools across K-P arrive each day at buildings as bare as unfinished construction sites. No boundary walls. No electricity. No washrooms. Not even drinking water.

Over 5,000 schools in K-P operate without a single watt of electricity. In more than 2,000 schools, safe drinking water is a rarity. Thousands more lack washrooms or a protective wall around them. In Peshawar — the provincial capital itself — 21 schools are in the dark, 15 can't offer clean water, 17 lack even a toilet and eight stand exposed, wall-less, to the city's sprawl. Peshawar, not some remote hillside........

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