The petroleum Training Development Fund (PTDF) says a total of 8800 applicants were shortlisted for interview in its 2022/2023 overseas scholarship.
Fielding questions from journalists on Monday in Abuja, PTDF’s Head Overseas Scholarship Scheme, Bello Mustapha said the shortlisted applicants were selected from over 26000 applications.
PTDF as an organization is saddled with the responsibility of building capacity, capability, technology, and manpower requirement in the oil and gas industry in line with its mandate. The Fund started the scheme in 2000 sponsoring capable Nigerians to study abroad for Masters and PhD programmes.
The interview began Monday, across the 5 geopolitical zones except the South East due to insecurity issues.
Mustapha said: “But we are conducting the five geopolitical zones this year because of the issue of insecurity in the South East. We are using Ibadan, Bauchi, Port Harcourt, Abuja, and Kaduna. We are starting today and it will run for three weeks in Abuja, then two weeks in other centres apart from Bauchi which will be for one week because we don’t have many candidates.
“We sent them mails asking them to choose any centre from any geopolitical centre that they want. We have people who are in the South East and they are in Abuja but they are competing with people from their state. So, it does not really affect anything.”
The Head of Assist Scholarship Scheme division noted that unlike last year, the number of applicants for the 2022/2023 programme will be determined by budgetary allocations.
“It depends on the budgetary constraints. We are running based on budgetary constraints. Last year, we took 3 Msc and 2 for PhD from each state. At the end of the day, we will have to look at the budget this year before we come up with our final selection,” he said.
According to him, there are also concessions for oil producing states.
While praising the impact of the programme on the socio-economic fabric of the country, Mustapha said students from the programme have continued to excel in their various fields of endeavors.
You know we have been sponsoring people over the years and some of them have come back and are contributing to the Nigerian economy. Some of them are in Shell, some are in NNPC. We have a lot of scholars that have proved themselves; all these panelists that you are seeing are ex-scholars. We use them. They went to do PhD, when they came back, some of them are in the universities, the academic environment and they contribute optimally from what they have studied abroad.
Explaining further, he said there are 18 universities in the UK that the Fund partners with.
“And we have in Germany, we have in Malaysia now, we have in China, even though, we not using China this year because of the pandemic issue, and we have in France.
“They are some of the best institutions in the world that we are sending our scholars to. And you know because of the rigorous selection process that we have, we send the best. And based on the attestation that we get from the schools, you can see that they are among the best scholars that you can find anywhere in the world. It is because of the rigorous selection process that they pass through,” he added.
