Government of Pakistan through the Higher Education Commission (HEC) announced that from financial year 2015-16, tuition fee and approved mandatory charges of all new university admissions under PM’s tuition fee scheme will be paid in advance.
The PM’s Tuition Fee Scheme has been launched on objective is to increase outreach of the Scheme and further facilitate students who apply in universities under the scheme, which has been specifically designed to provide financial assistance to the students of less developed regions who are eligible for admission on open merit.
An amount of 1.8 billion has been allocated for this new initiative of paying fee in advance from Fall 2015/Spring 2016, which will encourage meritorious and needy students to apply for higher studies without worrying about their university dues.
Fresh students have to apply through student’s web portal of the scheme. The university concerned will verify the eligibility of its students and funds will be released to the university by HEC accordingly.
Students with valid domicile/local certificates of specified areas enrolled in Masters, MS or M Phil programs in public sector university or postgraduate college located in their respective region are eligible. Further, the students with valid domicile local certificates of selected areas enrolled in PhD programme in any public sector university of Pakistan are also eligible under the Scheme.
During the last two years, HEC has reimbursed tuition fee and other approved charges of more than 100,000 students of less developed areas amounting to Rs. 2.5 billion. The areas included under the scheme are Balochistan, GilgitBaltistan, FATA, Interior Sindh, Southern Punjab, AJK, Malakand, Kohistan, Dera Ismail Khan divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Attock, Mianwali, Bhakkar and Khushab districts of Punjab.
The scheme covers tuition fee, admission and registration fee, examination, laboratory, library (non-refundable) and research fee of master’s, MS or MPhil and PhD students. New areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa such as LakkiMarwat, Battagram, Kala Dhaka, Torghar, Kohat, Bannu, Hangu and Karak have also been included to facilitate students of these areas.
