The Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) has selected 606 applicants for the physical screening exercise in the Bauchi centre for Masters and PhD foreign scholarships.
Speaking during the ongoing screening exercise at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi on Monday, the team lead of the Fund, Suraju Abdullahi Fari said that the screening has been organised in different six states of the Nation’s zone.
According to him, 606 candidates were invited for screening for both second and third degree.
He explained that the applicants who applied online were selected by a computerised system and verified by the Fund’s independent consultant to ensure transparency.
Fari said that the applications to be considered must focus on oil and gas and renewable energy to serve as solutions to some of the nation’s energy crisis.
“For transparency and fairness, we did our application online where the computer made the first selections, then we gave our staff before passing it to our consultants to vet it,” he said.
“We invited a team of panelists from different universities across the country, some doctors, some are professors, also from industries –Shell, Chevron and others.”
An applicant, Oseni Yunusa Mohammed, an indigene of Edo State, who applied for PhD in chemical engineering expressed satisfaction with the process, saying it was well conducted to devoid of ‘godfatherism’ and corruption.
Mohammed expressed optimistic to benefit to study in Germany and return home to contribute to the nation’s oil and gas industry.
