Mkpoikana Udoma
29 November 2018, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt — The Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited, SPDC, on Tuesday awarded 1,032 scholarships to secondary, tertiary and postgraduate students, in Rivers State, as a way of promoting academic excellence and promoting quality education in the country.
A total of 532 of the scholarships is for secondary school students, while 430 went to university scholarship, 10 went for foreign post-graduate scholarship and 60 for Cradle-to-Career scholarship.
Managing Director of SPDC, Mr. Osagie Okunbo, said the scholarship was imperative in a bid to develop a sound human resource base for the Niger Delta region and Nigeria.
Okunbo, while handing the awards to beneficiaries at the SPDC-JV Education Day programme held in Port Harcourt, said the oil firm’s education initiative was also aimed at developing a sound human resources base for the country.
“In continued recognition of the role of education in our nation’s development, SPDC-JV would be giving scholarships to the 2018 awardees. These comprise 532 regular secondary scholarships, 60 cradle-to-career secondary school scholarships, 430 university scholarships and 10 international post-graduate scholarships.
“SPDC-JV education initiatives continue to contribute towards the actualisation of the UNESCO Education-for-all goal as well as develop a sound human resources base for Niger Delta region and Nigeria’s development.”
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu said the federal government has placed a high premium on the education sector and human capacity development.
Adamu commended SPDC and its joint venture partners for complimenting the efforts the federal government in providing and promoting quality education in the country.
“The federal government, under president Muhammadu Buhari has human capacity development as part of his top priority, this can be testified to by the huge investments in the education sector on various scholarships schemes local and international.
“The importance of scholarship awards as a form of students support programme cannot be over emphasised. Rewarding academic excellence and reducing the burden of paying a high cost of tuition has been of great concern to the government of the day.
“We acknowledge the efforts of SPDC and their partners in complementing the efforts of the government in such a critical area that is of paramount importance to nation’s building.”
