The state is under constitutional obligation to "provide free and compulsory education to all children of age five to 16 years". In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) there are nearly half a million children in this age group who do not go to school. On the assumption of office the high-spirited new governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, thought it opportune to start off on what he presumed right foot by announcing "education emergency" in Fata. He set an enrolment target of 400,000 new students - boys and girls - in government schools. He, perhaps, didn't then know how problematic would it be to convince the Peshawar-based Fata Secretariat that he really meant what he said. There had been a running dispute for quite some time between the sectoral officialdom and the