Punjab Study

LAHORE: A large number of students belonging to the School of Allied Health Sciences, attached with the Children’s Hospital, on Wednesday staged a protest against Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Punjab government for not registering them in the free laptop scheme.

The students gathered in front of the Lahore Press Club around 12:30pm, carrying placards and chanting slogans against the HEC and Punjab government for ignoring them in the laptop scheme.

The protesters said that School of Allied Health Sciences was affiliated with the University of Health Sciences (UHS) where at least 400 students were enrolled in BSc (Hons) and DPT programmes.

They said that according to the advertisement, all registered students for MS, LLM, PhD and MPhil programmes would be getting free laptops.

They explained the set eligibility criteria of distribution of 100,000 laptops among the youth, which included all the students enrolled in the four-year bachelor programmes.

In the case of annual examination system, students who had scored more than 60 percent marks in the last year’s result were eligible for the laptops, whereas the percentage set for students studying in the semester system was 70 percent, they said, adding that the eligibility criterion for post-graduate students (Part 1 and 2) was also the same. Moreover, the top 100 students of each Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education of Punjab are also to be awarded with the laptops, they elaborated.

The protesters argued that the concerned authorities had first registered them for the laptop scheme but later raised objection over the institution’s registration.

They alleged that the objection was baseless and the real reason for the discrimination was a tussle between the Punjab government and HEC.

The students said that they were equally eligible for the laptops, adding that medical students were the servants of a society in the truest sense since it was the medical sector that took care of the ailing human beings in filth, risky environments and during spread of contagious and deadly diseases like dengue, bird flu and others.

They added that the medical students served the public even when others from their profession were sitting on the roads protesting for their genuine rights.Daily Times.