How Many More Children Must We Lose Before Safety Matters?

Every morning, millions of parents across Pakistan perform the same routine. They wake their children for school, pack their bags, remind them to study hard, and send them out the door with a silent prayer that they will return home safely. Education is seen as the pathway to a better future, a chance to build a life filled with opportunity and hope.

This week in Lahore, that hope was crushed beneath a collapsed roof.

Fourteen children lost their lives when the roof of a tuition centre caved in during class. They were not taking unnecessary risks or putting themselves in danger. They were doing exactly what every parent encourages their child to do—studying, dreaming, and preparing for a brighter future. In a matter of seconds, an ordinary day became a nightmare that no family should ever have to endure.

As news of the tragedy spread, the country reacted with shock and grief. Messages of condolence filled social media, officials announced investigations, and promises of accountability quickly followed. These responses are important, but they are not enough. We have seen this pattern before. Tragedy strikes, investigations begin, public attention peaks, and then, slowly, the story fades as new headlines take its place.

For the families who lost their children, however, there is no moving on.

Their homes now carry a silence that words cannot describe. A school uniform will remain hanging in a cupboard. A half-finished notebook will never be completed. A child’s laughter, once the heartbeat of the household, has been replaced by unimaginable grief. These are not just statistics in a news report. They were sons and daughters with dreams of becoming doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, and leaders. Those dreams ended long before they ever had the chance to begin.

This tragedy raises a question that extends far beyond one tuition centre. How many educational institutions across Pakistan operate in buildings that have never undergone proper structural inspections? How many parents unknowingly leave their children in classrooms where safety has been overlooked? Most families never think to ask whether a building has been declared safe. They assume that responsibility belongs to those who own, manage, and regulate these institutions.

That trust should never be betrayed.

A classroom should be a place where young minds grow, not where lives are placed at risk because of negligence. Safety cannot remain an afterthought, addressed only after disaster strikes. Regular building inspections, strict enforcement of construction standards, and transparent accountability are not optional measures—they are responsibilities owed to every child who walks into a classroom.

This is not simply about assigning blame. It is about preventing another family from experiencing the same heartbreak. Every institution that welcomes children through its doors must also carry the responsibility of protecting them. Education should never come with the hidden risk of unsafe buildings or ignored warnings.

The children who lost their lives in Lahore cannot be brought back. But their deaths must not become another forgotten headline. If this tragedy does not lead to meaningful action, then we will have failed them twice—first by not protecting them, and then by not learning from their loss.

Pakistan often says that its children are its future. Those words must be reflected not only in speeches and policies but in the safety of every classroom, school, and tuition centre across the country.

The question before us is painfully simple, yet impossible to ignore: How many more children must we lose before safety becomes a priority instead of an afterthought?