14 disabled students of AIOU get free laptops

Islamabad: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) on Wednesday distributed laptops among its 14 disabled and transgender students under Higher Education Commission Laptop Scheme in order to provide them an opportunity to get modern education.

Addressing at a laptop distribution ceremony here, Director General Regional Services Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) Inamullah Sheikh said that the university was especially facilitating the transgender community, handicapped, prisoners, orphans, children of ‘Shuhada’ by offering them free education.

He said the university was encouraging transgender community to acquire higher education for bringing positive change in the society. He said transgenders were equal to other human beings of the society and bringing them into the mainstream would help them to earn respectable livelihood.

They could also play an active role in socio-economic development of the country, he said. Speaking on the occasion, Regional Director Islamabad Region Ahsan Shakoor said the university has already imparting distance education, therefore, the novel COVID-19 did not much loss the students'' education.

He said it was the part of the University’s standing policy of taking care of marginalized sections of society and to ensure that nobody should be deprived of education owing to financial constraints. Later, laptops were distributed among 14 disabled and a transgender student. The students appreciated the government initiative of providing them a free laptop to pursue their higher studies.