PM Youth Chromebook Scheme: who qualifies and how to apply
How Pakistan's PM Youth Chromebook Scheme picks students: who qualifies by region, the IBCC portal steps, the seminary quota and the old laptop scheme.
Why it matters
Hundreds of thousands of Pakistani families will learn in the coming months whether their child gets a free Chromebook, and the rules on who is chosen are spread across several sources and still changing.
A Class 9 student in Peshawar does not apply for one of Pakistan’s 500,000 free Chromebooks so much as get found. Their exam board picks the top scorers from the 2026 results, sends the names to Islamabad, and the student then confirms the record online. The PM Youth Chromebook Scheme, launched by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on October 25, 2026, works that way for government-school pupils across the country.
Quick answer: The scheme gives free Chromebooks, each with a portable MiFi internet device, to top-scoring government-school students in Class 9 (Class 9 and 10 in Islamabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan), chosen on 2026 annual exam results. Boards shortlist students; they confirm their record and upload documents at pmychromebooks.ibcc.edu.pk. Students at registered seminaries are also included, officials said.
The government says the 500,000 devices will go out over two years. The plan differs in almost every respect from the laptop scheme Pakistanis already know, which goes to university students who apply themselves.
In this article
- Who qualifies for the PM Youth Chromebook Scheme?
- How selection works, step by step
- How it differs from the PM Laptop Scheme
- What the government has and has not said about cost
- Open questions about the scheme
Who qualifies for the PM Youth Chromebook Scheme?
The official rules are on the registration portal run by the Inter Boards Coordination Commission (IBCC), the Islamabad body that links Pakistan’s school examination boards. They say only “top performing students” of government or public schools, ranked on the Annual Examinations 2026, are considered. The portal states that private-school students are not eligible.
The class that counts depends on where the student lives:
| Region | Who is considered |
|---|---|
| Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan | Class 9 (SSC-I) only |
| Islamabad Capital Territory | Class 9 and Class 10 (SSC-I and SSC-II) |
| Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) | Class 9 and Class 10 |
| Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) | Class 9 and Class 10 |
Source: IBCC Prime Minister’s Youth Chromebook Scheme portal, accessed October 26, 2026.
SSC stands for Secondary School Certificate, the exam taken over Classes 9 and 10. SSC-I is the first half.
Seminary students are the part most people ask about. At the launch, a student told the prime minister that seminary students had been told they would not receive devices; Sharif replied that this impression was wrong, according to The Express Tribune and The Nation. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said one in five Chromebooks would go to a student at a registered seminary, Dawn reported. ProPakistani, citing the scheme’s rules, reported the same one-in-five split within each province.
The portal’s own eligibility text, as of October 26, still mentions only government and public schools. It does not yet explain how a madrasa student gets onto a list.
Reported details that go beyond the portal come from a single outlet and should be read that way. ProPakistani reported a minimum of 50% marks, a 70/30 split between science and arts students, and inclusion of private schools funded by provincial education foundations. The last point conflicts with the portal’s statement that private-school students are excluded.
How selection works, step by step
Students do not compete in an open application. Boards choose first, and the student’s job is to confirm.
- Board shortlists the top scorers from its 2026 annual exam results and sends their details to the IBCC in Islamabad. The Peshawar board did this for its SSC Annual-I 2026 candidates and published the list on its website, ProPakistani reported on October 17.
- The student finds their record on the portal by choosing their board and entering a B-Form number (Pakistan’s child registration certificate), a CNIC (national identity card) number, or a roll or registration number, plus date of birth. Numbers go in without dashes.
- The student checks that the name, school and marks pulled from the board’s list are correct. If the record cannot be found, the portal says to try the roll number instead, then contact the board.
- Documents are uploaded: a recent colour photo, the Class 9 or 10 mark sheet, an attested copy of the B-Form or CNIC, and an attested copy of a parent’s or guardian’s CNIC. Each file is limited to 300 KB.
- The student submits and saves the reference slip. Only one application per student is allowed, and the form cannot be edited after submission. The portal warns that false information cancels the allocation.
Schools have a part too. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, heads of government schools were told to verify each listed student’s records on a signed form and send hard copies to the IBCC’s equivalence office in Islamabad, according to ProPakistani’s report on the Peshawar notice.
On October 26, the portal’s board list included the Punjab boards, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa boards, Quetta for Balochistan, Mirpur for AJK and the Federal Board for Islamabad. Sindh was missing: the portal says Sindh registration will open after all Sindh boards declare their Class 9 results for 2026. Gilgit-Baltistan was also absent from the list, although it is named in the eligibility rules.
No closing date had been published. The portal and education sites say deadlines vary by board.
How it differs from the PM Laptop Scheme
The Prime Minister’s Youth Laptop Scheme began in 2014 under Nawaz Sharif. Shehbaz Sharif said at the launch that about 600,000 laptops were given out over roughly a decade, a figure repeated by Dawn, The Nation and Aaj News. The Chromebook plan promises nearly as many in two years.
| PM Youth Laptop Scheme (2025 phase) | PM Youth Chromebook Scheme (2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | Students at public-sector universities and HEC-recognized degree-awarding institutes | Top-scoring Class 9 (and in some regions Class 10) government-school students; registered seminary students |
| Device | Laptop | Chromebook plus MiFi device |
| Number | 100,000 | 500,000 over two years |
| How students get in | Apply online; merit lists | Board shortlists; student confirms online |
| Merit bar | 70% (2.80 CGPA) semester system, 60% annual system | 2026 exam ranking; no published cut-off |
Source: Aaj News, April 2025; Pakistan Observer, 2025; IBCC portal; Dawn and The Express Tribune, October 25, 2026.
HEC is the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan’s university regulator.
A Chromebook runs Google’s ChromeOS, a lighter system built around the web browser and Google’s online services. That makes the MiFi device, a small battery-powered hotspot, more than an extra. Without a connection, much of what a Chromebook does stops working.
Officials expect that connection to reach beyond the student. Dawn and Aaj News reported that the internet access would extend to family members, reaching an estimated 2.5 million people. Chrome Geek, a ChromeOS news site, attributed that figure to the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme and said each connection could serve up to five people.
What the government has and has not said about cost
No total cost or budget had been published by October 26. The launch reports from Dawn, The Express Tribune, The Nation and Aaj News give no rupee figure.
The partner named at the launch is the Tokyo Technology Care Foundation, whose chairman, Rashid Minhas, said its agreement with the government aimed at a “national digital revolution,” Dawn reported. The Tribune and The Nation described Minhas as having donated toward the scheme, without an amount. The same organization appears as “TT Care Foundation Lahore” in a December 2025 government press release, which said it was providing the devices.
The Chromebooks are refurbished, according to a launch banner described by Dawn and to ProPakistani’s report.
There is a domestic manufacturing link as well. Since November 2025, Google has been making Chromebooks in Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence Production and the National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC), with plans for about 600,000 devices a year, The Express Tribune and The Nation reported. Neither said whether the scheme’s devices come from that plant.
How the plan took shape
- 12 Dec 2025: Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, announced 700,000 Chromebooks for students nationwide, in phases, according to the Press Information Department.
- Aug 2026: The prime minister said 250,000 high-achieving students would receive Chromebooks that year, Dawn reported.
- 17 Oct 2026: The Peshawar board published its list of eligible Class 9 students and sent the details to the IBCC.
- 25 Oct 2026: Shehbaz Sharif launched the scheme in Islamabad, putting the total at 500,000 over two years.
Open questions about the scheme
No formal criticism from opposition parties or education groups appeared in the launch coverage checked for this article. Several things remain unclear from the official record itself.
The numbers have moved. The December 2025 announcement said 700,000; the October 2026 launch said 500,000. ProPakistani’s report said the handout would take three years, where Dawn, The Express Tribune and Aaj News all said two.
The seminary route is announced but not yet visible on the portal. Ministers have promised one device in five to madrasa students, while the published criteria still speak only of government schools.
Refurbished hardware raises a practical question that the government has not addressed. Google supports each Chromebook model with updates for a fixed period from its release, and an older refurbished model has less of that period left. The Chrome Geek report raised this point. Officials have not said which models are being supplied.
Then there is the selection itself. Sharif’s line at the launch was “Only your hard work and ability will be the criteria,” as quoted by The Express Tribune and The Nation. The portal turns that into a single measure: one set of 2026 exam results, compared within each board.
Watch for: the Sindh boards’ Class 9 results, which open registration there; Gilgit-Baltistan appearing in the portal’s board list; written rules for seminary students; and each board’s closing date, posted on its own website.
Families who think a child should be on a list but cannot find the record are told by the portal to contact their examination board, which holds the original results.
