The Pakistani Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Afghanistan said on Thursday the government had released Rs1.551 billion to the Higher Education Commission for Afghan students studying on scholarships in Pakistan.

Last year the HEC announced it would award around 3,000 scholarships to Afghan students under a four-year program. Around 1,000 Afghan students were also awarded grants last year as part of the HEC’s Allama Iqbal Scholarship Programme. Similar programs have been launched several times in previous years whereby selected students from Afghanistan have been able to attend universities across Pakistan.

“Government has released Rs.1.551 billion to HEC to meet expenses of Afghan students who are studying under Pakistan’s scholarship program,” PM’s special envoy to Kabul, Mohammad Sadiq, wrote on Twitter. “This important program for Afghan youth was starving for resources over last several months due to paucity of funds.”

About three million Afghans live in Pakistan, with more in neighboring Iran, many of them struggling to get full access to education, health and employment.