KP to distribute 25,000 laptops among enrolled students only

Peshawar, The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to distribute around 25,000 laptop computers only among enrolled students of universities and colleges, official sources said.

Earlier, the scheme was declared for those students who had completed 16 years of their education.

The sources said that the decision had been made to boost those currently studying in educational institutions. They claimed that there was no logic to distribute laptops who had already completed their education and left educational institutions.

Finance Minister Humayun Khan had stated in his budget speech that laptop scheme worth Rs1 billion was for students with 16 years education.  The sources said that the higher education department later assured top government officials to change the idea and distribute the laptops among only enrolled students as this would help them more than those who had completed education and were now out of educational institutions.

The provincial government intended to distribute laptops among deserving students within four months and the concerned department has started arrangements in this regard.

The higher education department (HED) has started collecting data of enrolled students in public sector universities and colleges across the province, the officials said. Total enrolled students, around 25,000 students would benefit from the laptop scheme, they said.

Secretaries of different departments, including HED, finance, science and technology, elementary and secondary education, industry and managing director of Information Technology (IT) Board, would be members of the committee, she said.

The secretary said that this committee would be responsible to an oversight committee of the lawmakers. Minister for higher education Qazi Asad, minister for science and technology Ayub Ashari and two MPAs from opposition benches would be members of the oversight committee, she said.

There would be no submission of application form by the students for getting laptops relatively the department would get data of the students directly from all educational institutions concerned.

The sources said that finalizing requirement of the laptops, to be attained for the students, was responsibility of the science and technology department. According to first concern, they said, that they were expecting to procure 25,000 laptops.

They said that the receivers would be from students who had qualified first semester of four-year Bachelor of Study (BS) program or part-I of bachelor degree, including MBBS and B.Sc engineering. Besides, laptops would also be awarded to top 10 position-holders in intermediate examinations in four categories, including pre-engineering, pre-medical, arts and computer science, on the level of eight boards of intermediate and secondary education in the province.