PTDF screens eligible candidates

By Grace Udofia

ABUJA—Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF, has screened candidates who had earlier applied for the fund’s scholarship programme nationwide.

The screening, which took place at various centres across the country simultaneously, had students from various units of the oil and gas discipline participating.

Executive Secretary of PTDF, Dr Bello Gusau, who monitored the exercise in the Abuja and Kaduna Zones, explained that the fund was targeting 1,700 candidates at the Abuja centre and 4,500 nationwide.

He said the examinations took place simultaneously in all the centres, noting that the results would be communicated to the candidates later,.

He said: “This exam is essentially for masters’ programme so they must all have a first degree and must be in the relevant field that is related to the oil and gas sector.

“In our selection, we put the federal character into consideration, that is why we have other centres across the nation and the federal character commission is represented at this interview and all other centres in the country.”

Gusau explained that the screening of scholars was for both overseas and local programmes as the fund has been working towards domesticating its capacity building programme.

His words: “Even though the fund is trying to phase out overseas scholarship, it is still on because you can’t just stop abruptly.  There has to be some kind of periodic checks to frequently direct the figures from foreign universities to Nigerian universities.

“As you can see,  a number of the beneficiaries of PTDF capacity building programme are working in the oil and gas sector. A large number are also in the university system, like a kind of train the trainer programme whereby we equip the universities to handle more and more people who are interested in working and acquiring skills for the sector.

“ What we do essentially to improve the scholarship programme is to ensure that based on our own skills gap analysis, we understand where we have deficit in the oil and gas sector and we concentrate on those areas of deficit. As the sector is growing, new demands for skills are also growing, so we keep tracking and monitoring so that we tailor our capacity development programme to meet such demands.” he added.

In the same vein, the Federal Character Commission, FCC, has expressed satisfaction with the enumeration process carried out by the Fund.

 

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