Education

PTDF shortlists over 5,000 applicants for 2023/2024 foreign scholarship award

Published

11 months ago

June 20, 2023

PTDF shortlists applicants for foreign scholarship

The Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF, on Monday in Abuja, shortlisted over 5,000 applicants nationwide for award of scholarship for the 2023/2024 academic session overseas scheme.

The head, Oversees Scholarship Scheme in the PTDF, Bolanle Kehinde-Agboola, said this at a selected interview exercise for the shortlisted candidates for MSc and Ph.D. postgraduate programmes.

Ms Kehinde-Agboola said that the selection interview was in continuation of the application process which commenced in Feb. 13, 2023, through publications in some national newspapers, inviting qualified Nigerians to apply.

According to her, “what is happening here today is the interview for the award of scholarship to Nigerians for the 2023/2024 academic session.

“We have shortlisted over 5,000 applicants to partake in the exercise which is going on in the six geo-political zones.

“The first criteria is that you must be a Nigerian. For the masters programme the applicant must be a student of any of the oil and gas fields like engineering, geology, computer sciences, environmental sciences and management.

“You must have a minimum of second class upper in any of these fields for you to be qualified,” she said.

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Ms Kehinde-Agboola said the process of applying for the exercise was that the agency would open the application windows at the end of the year for candidates to apply.

She said that the PTDF was an agency charged with the capacity to strengthen and develop oil and gas sector, indicating that the essence of the programme was to train who would bring new innovation into the sector.

She added that the aim of the exercise was also to offer the applicants the necessary skills required to function effectively in the industry.

“The candidates are sent abroad to study the relevant skills. This scholarship scheme is running in the United Kingdom, while “we also have what is called strategic partnership in France, Germany, Malaysia and China.

“This scholarship interview scheme will run for one week nationwide and the number of successful applicants depends on its budget for this year.

“The agency has two types of collaborations in this programme, the United Kingdom collaboration and the strategic partnership collaboration.”

The head of scholarship scheme said that the scheme had been existing over the years, adding that the agency had discovered that some applicants do submit fake certificates.

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According to her, “we have had a situation where someone finished from a university with third class in Nigeria and came with a first class certificate from a foreign university that is fake.

“We were able to detect such fake certificates, and because of that, we decided to take a further step to ratify the issue by ensuring that this selection runs with integrity and deligence.

“This year, we have deployed some equipment that will help us to detect fake certificates.

“We will always strive for excellence and make ensure the programme has integrity.

“We engaged external experts to review the shortlisted applicants to ensure that whoever is shortlisted is qualified to attend the interview.

“After the interview, the successful applicants will emerge and the award will be given to them,” she said.

Ms Kehinde-Agboola said that the exercise has been structured to efficiently deal with the high number of applicants and to satisfy federal character stipulations.

PTDF shortlists applicants for foreign scholarship

NAN

Education

Lawyer demands JAMB to disclose top UTME scorers

Published

16 mins ago

May 4, 2024

Trends Admin

Lawyer demands JAMB to disclose top UTME scorers

An Abuja-based lawyer, Chief Chukwuma Nwachukwu, has taken action against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for withholding information about the top scorers in the recently released 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. In response, Nwachukwu has invoked the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) against the examination body.

In a letter addressed to JAMB, Nwachukwu requested to be provided with the names and scores of the top 10 candidates in the 2024 UTME within seven days, as mandated by the FOI Act. He expressed dissatisfaction with JAMB’s decision to withhold this information despite providing a breakdown of candidates’ performance on April 29.

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Specifically addressing the Registrar General of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Nwachukwu demanded: “The names and scores of the 10 best students and their respective performances in the above examination.”

JAMB recently announced that the results of 64,624 candidates were withheld while releasing the results of 1,842,464 candidates. Prof. Oloyede stated that the withheld results were under investigation for verification, procedural investigation, and alleged examination misconduct.

Furthermore, he revealed that 2,896 candidates were under investigation for verification, 4,594 for procedural investigation, and 57,056 for centre-based investigation in 18 centres across Edo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Kwara.

Lawyer demands JAMB to disclose top UTME scorers

Education

UniAbuja: ASUU declares indefinite strike over disagreement with varsity management

Published

2 days ago

May 2, 2024

Trends Admin

UniAbuja: ASUU declares indefinite strike over disagreement with varsity management

University of Abuja’s branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared an indefinite strike.

The union announced the decision on Thursday during a congress held at the permanent site of the institution.

A communique issued by the varsity’s branch of the union declared the “total and indefinite strike” over a lingering disagreement with the UniAbuja management.

The issues involve ASUU’s interest in a multi-stakeholder microfinance banking venture; promotion procedures in the absence of a governing council, election for faculty deanship, and alleged illegal appointments.

Abubakar Kari, the UniAbuja student affairs dean and ex-convener of ASUU’s national political committee, confirmed the development.

Education

UTME results not available in paper format – JAMB

Published

2 days ago

May 2, 2024

Trends Admin

UTME results not available in paper format – JAMB

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has urged Nigerians to be wary of any candidate parading printed result slips as, currently, the results are not in any paper format.

The body also said that, unlike last year, the results cannot be found on the Board’s website at the moment.

JAMB made this known in a statement released by its spokesperson, Dr Fabian Benjamin, on Wednesday.

He stated that the information became necessary as some individuals were already circulating printed result slips on social media.

The statement read, “The Board, once again, wishes to state clearly that the only way to check the 2024 UTME result is to send UTMERESULT to 55019 or 66019 using the same phone used by the candidate in registering for the UTME exercise. Ensure that the SIM is not on any bundle.

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“This is different from what was obtained last year; hence, the results are not and cannot be found on the Board’s website at the moment.

“Candidates are urged to follow the method specified above to obtain their results. They need not visit any cybercafe or patronise any third-party entity to check their result.

“The public is also advised to be wary of any candidate parading printed result slip as currently; the result is not on any paper format as being circulated on social media by some individuals.

“A reasonable number of candidates have checked their results as seen on our monitoring dashboard but for the few still struggling, please follow the right channel.”

On Monday, the Board announced the release of the 2024 UTME results.

The Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, made this known during a press briefing in Bwari, Abuja.

Oloyede also noted that the results of 64,624 out of the 1,904,189 who sat the examination have been withheld by the Board and will be subject to investigation. The Board Registrar noted that though a total of 1,989,668 registered, a total of 80,810 candidates were absent.