A total of 27,474 candidates applied for the various platforms of Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) scholarship scheme for the 2019/2020 academic year.
According to a document obtained from the fund’s headquarters in Abuja, these include application for the overseas postgraduate scholarship scheme under PTDF strategic partnership with universities in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, and applications for the undergraduate, Master’s and PhD scholarship awards in Nigerian federal universities under PTDF local scholarship scheme.
The application window for the overseas scholarship scheme closed on December 31, 2018 while that of the local scholarship (LSS) expired on the 16th of November 2018.
The document indicated that the application period for both schemes lasted six weeks.
A breakdown of the applications indicates that 15,822 applied for the overseas scholarship scheme in the MSc category, while 3,501 applications were received for the PhD scholarship award.
Of the 8,151 that applied for the PTDF local scholarship scheme 3,740 are for the undergraduate award, 3,393 for MSc and 1,017 for PhD.
The next stage of the processing is the screening of candidates for interview shortlist.
This would be based on class of degree, O-Level grades, and strength of personal statement.
Only those who meet the minimum requirements for each category of the programme and those who possess the best credentials based on the strength and quality of their qualifications and relevance of their proposed study to the fund’s mandate and the oil and gas industry will be invited for interviews at a date to be announced by the fund.
Applicants are therefore advised to look out for notifications from PTDF for further information in respect of their applications.