Pakistan has been running digital youth programmes for over a decade. The press conferences are always the same: a smiling official handing a laptop to a student, a podium speech about Pakistan’s digital future, a number in the millions that signals ambition.
What the press conferences never show is the student three years later.
With youth unemployment stuck above 31% and over 4.87 million DigiSkills enrollments on record, Pakistan has a data problem — not a shortage of programmes, but a shortage of honest accounting of what those programmes actually produced. This is that accounting.
Three programmes, three different theories of change
Before comparing outcomes, it is worth understanding that these three programmes are not trying to do the same thing. They have different theories of how to help young Pakistanis.
The PM Laptop Scheme operates on the simplest assumption: talented students in public universities lack access to hardware. Give them a device and their potential will do the rest. It is a hardware intervention in an ecosystem problem.
Hunarmand — in its various federal and provincial incarnations under Kamyab Jawan and the NAVTTC framework — operates on a skills-training model: teach young people specific, in-demand trades in structured classroom settings, pay them a stipend to attend, and place them with employers or freelance markets at the end.
DigiSkills operates on a mass-access model: make free online training available to anyone in Pakistan with an internet connection, remove every barrier to entry, and scale the numbers as high as possible. Trust that motivated learners will find their own path to income.
Each approach has merit in theory. The results in practice look very different.
PM Laptop Scheme: hardware without infrastructure
The PM Laptop Scheme is the oldest of the three and the most emotionally resonant. Under Phase II alone, around 500,000 laptops were successfully distributed through a transparent online system across public sector universities and technical colleges including Federal and FATA colleges. Over 1 million laptops have been distributed since the scheme’s inception, according to the government’s own figures.
Phase IV, launched for the academic year 2024–25, will distribute 100,000 laptops. The government allocated Rs 10 billion in the 2023–24 budget for the scheme. That is Rs 100,000 per device — a figure that covers hardware, logistics, and administration across the country’s public university network.
The eligibility criteria are merit-based. Students must be enrolled in public sector institutions, must demonstrate academic excellence, and priority is given to those from underprivileged backgrounds. The system is managed through HEC’s verification and merit-list process.
What worked: Access to hardware is a legitimate barrier for students in public universities, particularly those from lower-income households. PM Shehbaz Sharif noted that distributed laptops enabled youth to acquire education online and become freelancers after the COVID-19 outbreak — and there is credible anecdotal evidence that this happened at meaningful scale in the 2020–2022 period.
What did not: The scheme gives students a device but not connectivity, not software training, and not a pathway to employment. A Lenovo laptop with Windows preinstalled does not teach graphic design, does not open a Fiverr account, and does not tell a student from Quetta which skills have global demand. The hardware intervention addresses one node in a broken chain without fixing the others.
The deeper structural problem is political cycling. The scheme has been revived, rebranded, and relaunched with every change in government — from the CM Laptop Scheme in Punjab to the PM scheme at the federal level. Continuity, monitoring, and post-distribution outcome tracking have never been systematically implemented. The government can tell you how many laptops it handed out. It cannot tell you what happened to those students afterward.
Verdict: Wide reach, genuine hardware access value, near-zero accountability on outcomes. Best described as welfare with educational optics rather than a development intervention with measurable impact.
Hunarmand: structured skills with a stipend — but for whom?
The Hunarmand universe in Pakistan is fragmented across federal and provincial programmes — the Kamyab Jawan eHunar track under the Ministry of IT, the Punjab Hunarmand Programme, the Benazir Hunarmand Programme under BISP, and various NAVTTC-linked schemes. They share a common design: structured 3–6 month training in specific digital and vocational trades, delivered through certified institutes, with a monthly stipend to incentivise attendance.
The Hunarmand Kamyab Jawan programme offers three to six-month courses in more than 25 fields related to IT and telecommunications, with focus areas including artificial intelligence and digital marketing. The Punjab Hunarmand Programme 2025 provides eligible trainees a monthly stipend ranging from Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000 depending on the course, targets youth aged 18 to 35, and includes a women’s special quota.
The most recent and ambitious iteration is the Benazir Hunarmand Programme, formally launched in June 2026 under BISP. It targets BISP beneficiary households specifically — the poorest and most economically excluded families in Pakistan — and offers free training in IT, healthcare, construction trades, hospitality, and entrepreneurship, with NAVTTC accreditation and private sector MoUs for placement. In the first phase it will train 40,000 individuals.
Private companies including those in hospitality, beauty and wellness, mobile tech, and agri-business have already onboarded 3,000+ graduates. Industries with signed MoUs can hire certified and pre-screened trainees without additional training costs.
What worked: The stipend model is genuinely important. Free training without income support means poor families cannot afford for their young people to attend — especially women. The stipend is what separates Hunarmand from DigiSkills for the lowest-income cohort. The BISP integration in the newest iteration is the most structurally serious design yet: it ties skills training to verified poverty data, employer partnerships, and micro-loan access for graduates who want to start businesses.
What did not: Scale remains the critical limitation. The scale of programmes cannot match the number of young people in need, especially in rural areas. Training 40,000 people through Benazir Hunarmand in Phase 1 is meaningful for those 40,000 — but Pakistan adds roughly 3 million young people to the labour force every year. Hunarmand, across all its versions, is a well-designed intervention operating at a fraction of the required scale.
The political fragmentation compounds this: five different government entities running programmes with similar names, overlapping target demographics, and no unified data system means beneficiaries and policymakers both operate with incomplete information.
Verdict: The most thoughtfully designed intervention of the three, particularly in its BISP-linked iteration. Low reach, high quality, and the only programme that meaningfully targets those who need help most rather than those easiest to reach.
Read more: PM Youth Scheme and Punjab Parwaaz Card Help Pakistanis Work Abroad With Interest-Free Loans
DigiSkills: the most downloaded programme — but did it deliver?
DigiSkills is the numbers story. Since its launch in 2018, DigiSkills.pk has delivered over 4.5 million trainings across Pakistan, empowering youth, women, and the unemployed with essential digital competencies. More than 4.87 million people have enrolled since launch, making it one of the biggest government-backed online training programmes in South Asia.
The programme is executed by Virtual University of Pakistan under the Ministry of IT and funded through Ignite, the National Technology Fund. Courses offered include freelancing, e-commerce, QuickBooks, AutoCAD, WordPress, graphic design, creative writing, SEO, digital literacy, data analytics, video editing, animation, digital marketing, and more — all free, all certified by VU, and all accessible to anyone in Pakistan with internet access.
The impact claims are significant. According to a study by Semiotics, freelancers trained through DigiSkills generated exports of more than $200 million over two years at an average of $100 million a year. Pakistan is now the 4th largest provider of online freelancers in the world, and the Pakistan Software Export Board reports a 47.4% increase in freelancer earnings over recent years — with DigiSkills taking partial credit for that trajectory.
DigiSkills 3.0, announced in June 2025, aims to deliver 3 million additional free online trainings over 3.5 years, expanding the curriculum to 25 courses and incorporating 10 new offerings including artificial intelligence, UI/UX design, 3D modelling, and cloud computing.
What worked: DigiSkills has done one thing better than any other government programme in Pakistan’s history: removed barriers to access at scale. Zero cost, zero travel, online delivery, Urdu-language content, mobile-friendly interface. The 800,000 women trained by the programme represent a genuine social achievement — women in conservative households, who cannot travel to training institutes, who cannot afford private courses, who would never have been reached by Hunarmand’s classroom model.
The freelancer export link is real, even if the causal attribution is imprecise. Pakistan’s rise to 4th globally in freelancing did not happen accidentally, and DigiSkills was a meaningful enabler of the enabling conditions.
What did not: The gap between enrolment and completion is DigiSkills’ most serious structural problem — and it is one the government itself has now acknowledged. The government commissioned an independent third-party review of DigiSkills in 2026 to measure real impact, verify data, and assess employment and income outcomes. The review was triggered specifically because reported numbers need to be tested against actual engagement rather than just registrations.
The honest version of the 4.5 million trainings figure almost certainly contains a large proportion of people who enrolled, completed the mandatory freelancing orientation, received a certificate, and never used the skill to earn a rupee. Course completion rates for free online programmes globally average 5–15%. Even at 20% — a generous estimate — that is 900,000 people who meaningfully engaged versus 4.5 million counted.
Government interventions aimed at bridging the skills gap have had mixed results. Initiatives like DigiSkills have trained thousands in digital freelancing, but such programmes often fail to cater to graduates who require tailored pathways rather than short-term digital gigs. A social sciences graduate, a medical dropout, a Balochistan student with 2G internet — none of them are well-served by a model designed for urban youth with decent connectivity and basic digital literacy.
Verdict: The best-performing programme by reach and cost-effectiveness. Likely the single largest contributor to Pakistan’s freelancing economy. Significantly overstated by its own metrics. The independent review now underway should produce a more honest number — and that number will still be worth the programme’s existence.
The honest comparison
| PM Laptop Scheme | Hunarmand | DigiSkills | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target audience | Merit scholars, public universities | Low-income youth, BISP families | Anyone with internet |
| Total reached | 1M+ laptops | Tens of thousands | 4.87M enrollments |
| Cost per beneficiary | ~Rs 100,000 | Rs 18,000–72,000 (stipend only) | Near-zero per enrolment |
| Income generated | Unmeasured | Partial placement data | $200M exports claimed |
| Accountability mechanism | Merit list only | Attendance, stipend-linked | None (certificate-based) |
| Political continuity | Low — relaunched each govt | Low — fragmented | High — institutionalised |
| Best suited for | Urban merit students | Poorest families | Motivated self-starters |
The uncomfortable conclusion
None of the three programmes is a failure. All three have created real value for real people. The problem is the gap between what they claim and what they can demonstrate.
Pakistan’s youth employment crisis is structural. The youth NEET rate — those not in education, employment, or training — stands at 32.5%, while graduate unemployment exceeds 31%. No skills programme can solve a structural jobs deficit by itself. What programmes can do is equip the individuals most likely to help themselves — and on that measure, DigiSkills has the strongest evidence, Hunarmand has the most thoughtful design, and the Laptop Scheme has the most political theatre per rupee spent.
The most important intervention Pakistan has not yet made is the one that connects all three: a unified outcomes database that tracks what happens to beneficiaries after training, across every programme, across every government, persistently. Every country that has built a genuine digital workforce — India, Bangladesh, Vietnam — has done it by measuring what works and doubling down. Pakistan has been doubling down on announcements instead.
FAQs
Who is eligible for the PM Laptop Scheme Phase IV?
Students currently enrolled in public sector higher education institutions in Pakistan are eligible. Priority is given to academically outstanding students and those from underprivileged backgrounds. Applications are submitted through the official portal at pmyp.gov.pk and verified through HEC’s merit system. Phase IV will distribute 100,000 laptops in 2024–25.
Is DigiSkills training actually recognised by employers?
DigiSkills certificates are issued by Virtual University of Pakistan, a HEC-recognised institution, and are formally valid in government departments and many private sector organisations. However, on international freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, what matters is demonstrable skill and portfolio — not the certificate itself. The certificate signals completion; it does not signal competence to foreign clients.
What is the difference between Hunarmand Kamyab Jawan and the Benazir Hunarmand Programme?
Hunarmand Kamyab Jawan is the federal IT ministry’s digital skills track, focused on tech and telecom fields with online delivery options. The Benazir Hunarmand Programme is BISP’s new initiative targeting verified low-income families with vocational and digital training, structured around physical training centres, NAVTTC accreditation, and employer placement partnerships. The BISP programme is newer, narrower in target, and more structurally connected to poverty-graduation objectives.
Why does Pakistan still have 31% youth unemployment despite all these digital programmes?
Skills training addresses individual capability — it does not create jobs. Pakistan’s graduate unemployment problem is a structural mismatch between what universities and training programmes produce and what the formal and informal economy demands.
Digital skills open the door to freelance income for motivated individuals; they do not replace a functioning industrial policy, a growing formal sector, or an employment-linked education system. All three programmes help at the margin — none of them can resolve a macroeconomic jobs deficit.
Can someone with no prior digital knowledge benefit from DigiSkills?
Yes — the freelancing course, which is mandatory for first-time enrollees, is designed for complete beginners and is delivered in Urdu. However, progression to income-generating skill levels in fields like graphic design, web development, or data analytics requires significant self-directed practice beyond the course content.
The programme provides the foundation; building on it requires time, internet access, and personal initiative. Rural learners with limited connectivity or those who have never used a computer may need supplementary support that DigiSkills does not provide.