LAHORE – Master’s students on Thursday staged a protest against the Punjab government for not including them in the laptop list.
The students claimed that they had obtained first division in their recent results of MA part one and demanded the government to give them laptops. The students held placards and banners with their demands and chanted slogans against Punjab government in this regard.
The male and female students claimed that even though they met the merit criteria they were not being included in the lists of laptops receivers. The student said that they were masters students and needed latops more than bachelor students. They said that their complex work and researches demanded internet access and laptops.
The student said that the Punjab University had delayed the results due to which they had not been included in the laptop list prepared by their colleges.
It would be important to mention here that PU had declared the results of MA Mass Communication Part-I, MA Economics Part-I, MA English Part-I, M.Sc. in Geographical Information System and PGD in Human Resource Management on January 14.
“Now the college administration is denying to include us in the lists. The administration says that the lists had been sent to the Higher Education Department and now they can not do anything. We moved to the Punjab Higher Education Department also but the officials denied considering our grievances. Rather, HED officials asked us to go for protest,” the students said.
When contacted, an official of HED told The Nation that students of masters were not included in the scheme. He said the students, who were now studying in MA part II, were asked to provide their details last year and the eligible students among them were given laptops on the basis of results of bachelors.
However, the students were of the view that they had obtained appreciable marks and deserved laptops.
“We are deprived of laptops only because we are not studying in universities and this is discriminatory towards the students studying in colleges.”
They urged the Punjab CM to change the policy of free laptop distribution scheme and to provide them laptops on merit.