Pakistan Starts Handing Out 500,000 Chromebooks to Top Students

Pakistan has started giving Chromebooks to its top-performing students, with a target of 500,000 devices in two years. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched the PM Youth Chromebook Scheme at a ceremony in Islamabad on Sunday, October 25, and handed the first Chromebooks and MiFi internet devices to students on stage, as the Associated Press of Pakistan reports. Here is what the scheme includes and who can get one.

1. What was announced

The launch: the ceremony took place in Islamabad, where the Prime Minister handed Chromebooks and MiFi devices to high-achieving Grade 9 students and seminary students. He said the devices will be given purely on merit, regardless of a student’s economic background or school.

Why Chromebooks: the Prime Minister said the laptops will help students keep learning online, use e-libraries and explore new opportunities. He compared it with the earlier laptop scheme, which handed out 600,000 laptops over ten years, and said this one aims for 500,000 Chromebooks in just two years.

The internet part: according to Radio Pakistan, Prime Minister’s Youth Programme chairman Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan said the government will also give high-speed internet connections to the 500,000 students, and that each connection can benefit up to five people, extending access to around 2.5 million people.

Who is paying: Rashid Minhas, chairman of the Tokyo Technology Care Foundation, said the foundation has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to help students in schools and seminaries get online. The Prime Minister thanked the foundation for supporting the scheme.

2. Who qualifies

The basics: according to the official IBCC application portal, only students enrolled in government or public schools are eligible, and selection is based on the Annual Examinations 2026. Students apply with their board record, a recent photo, their mark sheet and attested copies of their B-Form and a parent’s or guardian’s CNIC. Each student can apply only once. Officials at the launch said seminary students are part of the scheme too, but the portal’s published criteria only mention government and public schools, so madrassa students should watch for separate instructions.

About Sindh: the portal says Sindh registration will open on the same site once all Sindh boards have declared their Class 9 Annual Examination 2026 results. For AJK, Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan, check that your board appears on the portal before you start.

Our take

Half a million Chromebooks with internet attached is a big deal for students who have never had a laptop of their own, and Chromebooks make sense for a scheme like this: they are cheap to run, easy to manage and hard to break with malware. The one thing we would watch is the word refurbished. Every Chromebook has a fixed update end date, and older school laptops tend to wear out fast, as a report on school Chromebook lifespans showed. If you get one, check its update date in Settings under About ChromeOS, and fill it with good education apps for Chromebook to make the most of it.