Overview
- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formally launched the Prime Minister’s Youth Chromebook Scheme on Sunday, October 25, committing to deliver 500,000 Chromebooks and MiFi internet devices to talented students over the next two years.
- Selection will be merit-based using students’ latest SSC-I scores with a reported minimum 50% threshold and verification by the Inter Boards Coordination Commission, plus quotas set for provinces and regions such as Punjab, Sindh, KP, Balochistan, Islamabad, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
- Each selected student will receive a Chromebook, a school bag and a MiFi unit, with officials saying each connection could serve up to five people and potentially extend benefits to about 2.5 million family members.
- The rollout includes operational safeguards: devices will be linked to recipients by serial number, sent by courier with a central monitoring system to track dispatch and delivery, and grievance committees will handle selection, verification and delivery complaints.
- The programme leans on partners and local production — with a Google/NRTC Haripur assembly line and a memorandum from the Tokyo Technology Care Foundation — and builds on a prior decade-long laptop effort of roughly 600,000 devices while adding one-year Google AI access and certificate offers for students.