Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif today officially launched a highly-anticipated scheme to provide Chromebooks and internet access to 500,000 students of schools and madaris across Pakistan.
The Government of Pakistan said the launch ceremony is taking place in Islamabad, where the prime minister will attend and address the gathering. Officials described the move as the next step after laptops were distributed to hundreds of thousands of students on merit.
Who Will Get the Chromebooks
The Prime Minister's Youth Chromebook Scheme is being administered by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training together with the Prime Minister's Youth Program.
According to officials, the 500,000 refurbished Chromebooks will be allocated over three years to high-scoring Grade 9 students.
Eligibility requires students to be ranked on their SSC-I results, verified by the Inter Boards Coordination Commission (IBCC), and to have achieved at least 50 percent marks.
Public-school pupils, private-school students funded by provincial education foundations and registered madaris are all eligible. A guide on how to apply for the PM Youth Chromebook Scheme is available.
In each province, four out of five devices will be assigned to school students and one to madaris students. Among school recipients, 70 percent of the quota is set aside for science streams and 30 percent for arts.
Province-Wise Quota
Punjab will receive 181,090 devices, Sindh 85,925, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 51,170 and Balochistan 31,815.
Islamabad has been allocated 100,000, while Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan will each get 25,000.
Devices will be sent directly to verified students by courier and tracked through a central monitoring system. Grievance committees will be established at board and provincial levels to handle complaints.
The government announced the 500,000 Chromebooks earlier this week.
