Digital learning: 0.5m laptops to be distributed among students by 2020

Scheme's primary objective is assisting students from middle, lower middle class to use tools for research studies

ISLAMABAD: Around 500,000 laptops are likely to be distributed among talented and deserving students by the year 2020, according to Prime Minister Youth Programme Chairwoman Leila Khan.

The laptops along with broadband internet devices will be given to students across the country to help them improve their learning through technology. This facility, available in all provinces, recently spread to Islamabad and FATA.

The scheme's primary objective is to assist students from middle and lower middle class backgrounds to use latest tools for their research studies. This initiative was taken by the federal government and was launched in 2014. Its purpose is to encourage and support the deserving students to make the mode of studies in the public sector universities digital.

HEC, Regional Coordinator, Qaim Ali Shah, stated that the scheme prioritized MS and PhD students as their studies were primarily research based.

Research Officer Abdul Shakir informed that a single laptop costs Rs44,000, so the government would be investing billions of rupees to secure the future of the young generation.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2018.