Prime Minister's Youth Program is a special initiative launched by the Government of Pakistan in 2013 for five (05) years. The Youth Program comprises of several schemes including Prime Minister's Interest Free Loan Scheme, Prime Minister's Youth Business Loans, Prime Minister's Youth Training Scheme, Prime Minister's Youth Skills Development Scheme, Prime Minister's Fee Reimbursement Scheme for Students from Less Developed Areas and Prime Minister's Laptops Scheme.
Prime Minister's Laptops Scheme is for Talented Students with the main objective of this scheme is an attempt to enhance the scope of research and quality education in the country and increase the access to information technology.
Objectives
Investment in youth not only has the highest rate-of-return (ROI), but has also been recognized as the best long-term investment for prosperous future of any nation, with a positive demographic dividend. Many large countries have transformed their challenge of big populations with high growth rate into opportunities to bolster their economies by empowering their youth with marketable skills. This realization by the government was the catalyst that crystalized the project to empower youth by giving them laptops for their academic and research activities.
Distribution of laptops is envisioned to bring a paradigm shift in the current education and research culture in the country. In this information age, personal computing devices, like a laptop, is a must especially for students at higher education level. Keeping this reality in consideration and realizing the limited number of laptops availability for the program, HEC preference is to give these laptops to those who is at the beginning of their academic years as to avail maximum benefits of this initiative.
Prime Minister's Laptop Scheme – Phase IV & V (2017)
This scheme was launched in 2013-14 with a target to procure and distribute 100,000 laptops amongst the students studying in Pakistan and AJ&K. HEC was given the responsibility to devise the mechanism of distribution of 100,000 laptops after procurement through open competitive bidding.
On the directives of the Prime Minister of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Government of Pakistan has initiated a national program for distribution of laptops to young and bright students studying in public sector higher education institutes (HEIs) across the country and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The scheme is part of the Prime Minister's Youth Programs for FY2013-14. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan is the executing agency responsible for developing criteria, mechanism, modalities and a road map for procurement and distribution of laptops under this scheme.
Similar to the past year, the scheme is conceived as a comprehensive ecosystem around the laptop instead of distributing "black boxes" to students. Ecosystem as envisaged around the laptop hardware for this project, consists of various components ranging from licensed/ genuine Windows 10 Operating System; Microsoft Office365 application software; Training opportunity at Microsoft IT Academy at respective university/ institutes; Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Certification voucher, 3G EVO Device; Access to HEC's National Digital Library using 3G/ 4G EVO Device and have oppertunity to take online cources from world renowned universities on subsidized rates through
https://pakcoursera.org. These aspects will not only bring value to money but will create synergy with relevant industries, as well as help HEIs to provide state-of-the-art technologically enabled academic environment at par with HEIs in the developed world.
Prime Minister's Laptop Scheme – Phase III (closed)
Prime Minister's Laptop Scheme – Phase II (closed)
Prime Minister's Laptop Scheme – Phase I (closed)
