Pakistan, Oct. 10 -- More than 400 government schools remain non-functional in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's merged tribal districts, according to provincial education data, raising fresh questions about service delivery eight years after the former federally administered areas were brought under the province's jurisdiction.

The figures emerged ahead of an analysis published on Friday by the World Economic Forum, which argues that Pakistan's rapidly growing population is stretching an administrative system in which decision-making and resources often remain far from the communities they are meant to serve.

An annual school census reported on August 27 identified 627 non-functional government schools across KP, including 411 in the merged distric...