LAHORE: Punjab Minister for Trade and Industries Mian Aslam Iqbal has announced waiving off registration and exam fee of the Punjab Board of Technical Education (PBTE) for students for one year due to the coronavirus.

It is expected that 90,000 students will take admission to the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Tevta) institutions in 2020-21 and admission fee Rs320m will not be received from them as well.

The board registration and exam fee of 17,ooo students of private technical institutions taking part in the PBTE has also been waived off. This way, the students will receive a relief amounting to around Rs230m by the PBTE.

The Punjab government has decided to provide a total relief of Rs550m to the students of technical institutions.

Addressing a press conference at DGPR office here on Friday, Mr Iqbal stated that Rs1.5bn were allocated for the Hunarmand Nowjawan Programme and no fee would be received from the students getting training under this programme. He said as many 51,539 students of matric vocational, matric technical, DCom and DAI have been promoted to next classes without exam due to the coronavirus and they had already been provided 40pc fee concession in their exam fee.

He further said the government was setting up special economic zones to create ease of business and the CBTA programme had been started at 83 Tevta institutions while this state-of-the-art training system would be introduced in 20 more institutions as the government was committed to train skilled force for the local industry.

Tevta has also been directed to devise an application for the registration of students intending to get technical education, the minister concluded.

DGPR Dr Muhammad Aslam and the PBTE chairman were also present.

SCHOLARSHIP: The Government College University vice chancellor has offered a full scholarship to the 16-year-old juice seller from Multan, named Muhammad Huzaifa, who scored 1,050 out of 1,100 marks in Matriculation in the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Multan.

Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asghar Zaidi said that besides a full fee waiver, the GCU would also bear the hostel expenses of the orphan boy who worked as a juice seller to support his siblings and mother.

Prof Zaidi said the boys like Muhammad Huzaifa were the role models for other GCU students and we would support him by all possible means.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2020