By ALEX ENEBELI

No fewer than 190 Master’s (M.Sc.) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) applicants from the South-East were on Wednesday screened 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 southeast in Enugu on Wednesday.

Amadi said that 190 students of M.Sc. 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, management,” Amadi said.

He said the programme was 100 per cent funded programme to assist Nigerians.

He maintained that only the best five would be selected in each of the five states in 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 using online and 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 panelist and a lecturer from the Sokoto State University, Dr Jamilu Usman, described the screening as very smooth, stressing that they identified fake documents through the help of florescent

He said that with the florescent they would identify fake WAEC, NECO and other certificates and the original 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 oil and gas industry,” he said.

Some of the applicants expressed optimism that their names would be shortlisted.

A Phd student, Onyinye Gift, who applied for M.Sc in Integrated Petroleum Geology in Aberdeen University, Scotland said she was hopeful of being selected. (NAN)

Update news