ISLAMABAD: Students studying in undergraduate programs at 119 public sector universities across the country can apply for scholarships, prime minister's special assistant Dr Sania Nishtar said on Monday.
In a statement, Dr Nishtar announced that the Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarship Online Portal has been opened for the academic year 2020-21.
She said the students whose family income was less than Rs 45,000 could apply for the scholarship through the online portal.
The undergraduate scholarships, worth a total of Rs 4.827 billion, were distributed among students in the academic year 2019-20.
Prime Minister Imran Khan formally inaugurated the 'Ehsaas Scholarship Program' on November 4, 2019. Under the programme, scholarships were to be given to 50,000 undergraduate students from low-income families every year.
The four-year programme is expected to benefit 200,000 students.
The scholarship includes a 100% tuition fee and a monthly stipend of Rs4,000. The scope of the programme includes public sector universities in all four provinces, Azad Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Fifty percent of the scholarships are for girls and 2% for students with disabilities.
The total budget of the programme is Rs 24 billion, Nishtar said.
This is the country's largest need-based scholarship programme that will provide opportunities for children from low-income families to pursue higher education, she said.
A total of 132,192 applications were received through the online portal of the Higher Education Commission for the year 2019-20. The scholarships have been issued to 50,762 students after scrutiny under the set rules.
The programme is overseen by the Ehsaas Scholarship Steering Committee, Dr Nishtar added.
