Big Relief for Punjab Students, Free Global Courses and Thousands of Scholarships Announced

Lahore (Pakistan Khabar) In an important meeting chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, several major decisions were approved to promote student welfare and improve the standard of education, while a significant announcement was also made by a global technology organization for students. It was shared in the meeting that more than 100,000 students will be provided with internationally recognized certification courses free of cost, with fees ranging from 400 to 1,000 dollars waived. These courses will cover modern fields including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, business analytics, and others, with durations ranging from three to six months. The meeting also highlighted strong student confidence in the Chief Minister’s laptop program, with instructions issued to provide laptops to minority students on merit as well. In the first phase, more than 38,000 students have already benefited, while 142,000 applications have been received for the second phase. The Chief Minister approved the expansion of the Honhaar Scholarship Program to provide stipends to all eligible students, under which 62,949 students will receive scholarships simultaneously. It was also decided that all commerce colleges in Punjab will be affiliated with public universities, enabling education in fourteen disciplines including business, accounting, finance, banking, and information technology. To improve institutional performance, approval was given to introduce a standardized system in colleges and set performance benchmarks for teachers and administrators. Additionally, the establishment of modern IT laboratories in 166 government colleges, provision of electric buses for students, and measures to improve facilities in educational institutions were also announced. The meeting also reviewed the participation of 994,000 students in the eighth-grade assessment exams, where the success ratio of female students remained higher, a development appreciated by the Chief Minister.