PTDF screens 190 M.Sc., Phd applicants in South-East for oversea scholarships
No fewer than 190 Masters and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) applicants from the Southeast were screened on Wednesday for 2023–2024 Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) oversea scholarships.
The Team Leader/Supervisor, PTDF South-East Zone, Mr. Samson Amadi, disclosed this during the ongoing PTDF Overseas Scholarship Scheme (OSS) 2023/2024 Academic Session selection interview for the southeast in Enugu on Wednesday.
Amadi said that 190 students of Msc and Phd from the southeast participated in the screening, adding that only 25 successful applicants, five each from the five states in the zone, would be selected.
He said that only the best among the applicants would be selected, depending on the agency’s budget for the year.
Amadi added that the interview was being done annually to select the best candidates in each state of Nigeria for the foreign scholarship to some of the Universities in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Malaysia.
“This is in continuation of the OSS application process that started on February 13, and the selection interview is being done simultaneously in all the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
“The scholarship is a fully funded scholarship by the PTDF Abuja, and it is mainly for oil and gas courses such as geology, chemical engineering, Environmental Biochemistry, and management,” Amadi said.
He said the program was 100 percent funded to assist Nigerians.
He maintained that only the best five would be selected in each of the five states in the zone, adding that the selection would be based on merit.
Amadi said the agency would pay the student’s tuition, visa, living allowance, accommodation, and other fees to make them comfortable.
He said that the initial application was done online and on the agency’s social media platforms.
“They were selected for screening after meeting all the required criteria, and those screening today are applicants from the region and others residing in the zone,” he explained.
One of the panelists and a lecturer from Sokoto State University, Dr Jamilu Usman, described the screening as very smooth, stressing that they identified fake documents with the help of fluorescent
He said that with the florescent, they would identify fake WAEC, NECO, and other certificates and the originals with security seals.
“One of the modalities was to ask the applicants what their focus was and the relevance of what they wanted to study to the oil and gas industry,” he said.
Some of the applicants expressed optimism that their names would be shortlisted.
A Ph.D. student, Onyinye Gift, who applied for an Msc in Integrated Petroleum Geology at Aberdeen University, Scotland, said she was hopeful of being selected.
