By Obas Esiedesa
As part of efforts to boost the capacity of Nigerians to work in the oil and gas industry, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) has shortlisted 8,800 candidates from over 26,000 applicants for this year’s overseas scholarship scheme, OSS.
The PTDF OSS is an annual programme that awards scholarships to Nigerians for MSc and PhD studies in partner universities in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China and Malaysia.
Speaking on the process for this year’s selection, Mr. Bello Mustapha, Manager, Overseas Scholarship Scheme, PTDF, said the process which started in December 2021 would see the shortlisted candidates interviewed across centres in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kaduna and Bauchi.
He said: “We are here for the 2022/2023 academic session, we have advertised the scholarship and we have called on people to apply, people have applied, over 26,000 people applied for the scholarship and over 8000 were selected to come and do the interviews.
“We conduct the interviews in the six geopolitical zones of the country but we are doing in five geopolitical zones of the country this year because of the issues of insecurity in the southeast. So we are using Ibadan, we are using Bauchi, we are using Port Harcourt, we are using here and we are using Kaduna”.
Mustapha explained that candidates in the Southeast have been advised to pick centres outside the region to enable them participate in the interview process.
“We sent them mails to choose any centre. In all the geopolitical zones we have, you can actually choose any centre that you want. You may be in the South East and you decide to come and do it in Abuja, or you can even go to Bauchi”.
While declining to indicate the exact number of candidates that would be finally selected for the scholarship award, he said the number would be dependent on the budget of the Fund.
He noted that at the end of their training abroad, the scholars were expected to return to the country to work in the petroleum industry and contribute their quota to growth of the Nigerian economy.
Vanguard News Nigeria