The Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) has started the screening process for 600 candidates as part of its 2024/2025 overseas postgraduate scholarship program for Nigerians in the South-South region.
General Manager of Projects, Mrs. Ifeoma Nwokike, announced this in Port Harcourt on Monday.
She said the interviews are being conducted concurrently across all six geopolitical zones.
More than 20,000 applications were received, out of which over 5,000 were shortlisted across the zones.
She stated,
”Port Harcourt is the centre for the 600 candidates that were selected from the South-South zone.
“The annual overseas postgraduate scholarship is a well thought-out programme intended to bridge the skill gap in the oil and gas industry.
“The scheme has been used over the years to train the best of Nigerians. The PTDF scholars are known everywhere in the world,” she said.
Nwokike stated that the 2024/2025 edition of the scholarship would particularly focus on fields such as engineering, geosciences, and environmental sciences, among others.
She explained that the availability of funds would play a crucial role in determining the number of scholarship recipients.
What she said
Nwokike spoke on the need to enhance human capital in the oil and gas industry through international education and training programs aimed at addressing skills shortages.
According to her,
“Our mandate is capacity building in the oil and gas industry, we have been mandated to train Nigerians in the different skills and vocations in the oil and gas industry.
“We use these scheme to train Nigerians in top universities abroad so that they can come back and contribute to the oil and gas industry in the identified skills gap,” she said.
In his remarks, Mr. Ere Iyalla, Team Lead for the Overseas Scholarship Interview Programme at the Port Harcourt Centre, said that the interviews are being conducted for candidates pursuing both master’s and Ph.D. degrees.
Iyalla outlined several criteria for the scholarships, including a strong O’Level result, a research proposal, membership in a professional body, and a statement of purpose that aligns with industrial needs.
About the 2024/2025 scholarships
The Head Overseas Scholarship Scheme (OSS), Mrs Bolanle Kehinde-Agboola, said the PTDF received a total of 20,356 applications this year, with 16,090 candidates applying for the master’s (MSc) program and 4,266 for the doctorate (PhD) program.
Scheduled to run until May 24th, the interviews take place in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, marking a crucial step in the scholarship selection process.
Following a screening process, 5,733 candidates were shortlisted for the interview stage—comprising 3,853 MSc applicants and 1,880 PhD applicants.
Agboola also said that the PTDF is collaborating with four countries— the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Malaysia—where the selected candidates will be sent for training. He further explained that the PTDF is an agency of the Federal Government tasked with the responsibility of developing capacity and capability within the oil and gas industry.
“The purpose of this is for the indigenisation of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
“Note that every state of the nation will get an equal number of candidates based on our budget for the year,” she said.
To be eligible for the PTDF scholarship, applicants must possess full-time admission letters into federal universities in Nigeria. A minimum of second-class lower (2.2) in an oil and gas/management-related field is mandatory, as well as a minimum of merit in a second-degree certificate in an oil and gas-related discipline.
She said that the PTDF has some measures in place to ensure that the candidates return to the country upon completion of their training.
She added, “The applicants sign bonds with us before going abroad. Also some of these countries we send them to do not allow them to stay back.
“Once you have sponsorship from a government agency, if you want to get a stay visa, they will ask you to go back to your sponsor for a letter of no objection.”
