Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday gave need-based scholarships to a batch of 50,000 undergraduate students under the "Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarship Program," offering them good educational opportunities.

The educational program was formally launched by the prime minister on Nov. 4 last year, under which 200,000 need-based scholarships will be given to undergraduate students belonging to lower and middle income families, in a period of four years.

Addressing a ceremony to award the scholarships, here, the prime minister said that youth are the greatest asset of his country and he wants to give them right direction by providing them with access to good education, hoping that the initiative will not only empower the people who otherwise cannot afford the expenses of education, but also help uplift the country itself.

He lamented that only a small number of people in the country has the access to good quality education, while many students from poor families do not get opportunity to make the best use of their intelligence by going to universities. The number of the need-based scholarships and funds for the higher education will increase when the country's economy gets improved, he added.

The country's Higher Education Commission (HEC) will recommend the brilliant as well as deserving students for the government's scholarships, based on their performance and the marks they scored in their previous years of education.

Regarding the program, the HEC said on its website that education beyond intermediate is one of the ways to overcome poverty. "However, access to higher education is itself distributed very unevenly. For example, only 0.4 percent of the children from the lowest income quintile (from the relevant age cohort) are enrolled in higher education institutions, which is far below the national average of 10 percent. Ehsaas scholarships aim to eliminate this source of unequal access."