THE NATION

PTDF’s multi-billion naira Petroleum College for Kaduna 27/5/2008

By Emeka Ugwuanyi, Assist Editor

As part of efforts to provide quality manpower for Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) says it will by end of this year commence the construction of the multi-billion naira National College of Petroleum Service, Kaduna.

The Presidency has also given approval to the project.

Currently, the PTDF is constructing another multi-billion naira project at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun in Delta State.

The Deputy General Manager, Training and Operations, PTDF, Hajia Habiba Wakil, disclosed this to The Nation at the Vision 2020 workshop meant to encourage youths to take up careers in oil and gas, science and technology, held in Lagos at the weekend.

Wakil said Kaduna College of Petroleum is meant to train senior and executive levels of corporate and technical personalities in the industry, while the PTI is for the middle and low level technical people.

She said that currently, the major challenge of the organisation is how to ensure the employment of the students trained by the oil companies in Nigeria, adding that since the establishment of the PTDF in 2002, it has trained over 700 people at Masters and Doctorate degree levels in oversea institutions.

She said that the mandate of the PTDF is to give quality training to Nigerians to make them employable by the oil companies. However, most of the graduates on their return to Nigeria, the oil firms don’t give them jobs and the situation gives the organization much concern.

As a respite, the unemployed people are attached to oil companies for six months while the PTDF pays the stipends. At the end of the six months, such candidates following their performance may be offered employment by the oil companies.

Her words: “Since we started in 2002, we have trained over 700 students abroad in M.Sc and PhD. We try to make Nigerians more attractive to the industry, so we do not control the employment channel of the international oil companies.

“What we do is asking them what they need; train people and hope they (oil companies) would absorb them. The major challenge of the PTDF is employment for the people we train. I know a number of our students have been absorbed in the industry abroad, but what we want is for them to be absorbed here in Nigeria. The rate of their absorption in Nigeria is very minimal.’

On expansion, she said: “We intend to expand the programme gradually. We have to train to meet a reform. We don’t just train in a vacuum. For example, we are doing a skills enhancement programme because the industry has told us that the engineers don’t have software design training and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has given a directive that all Front End Engineering Design (FEED) should be done in-country, so we are training people in software for the industry.”

On the issue of making Nigerian engineers globally competitive as their counterparts in other parts of the world by certifying them, she said that the PTDF is working closely with Nigerian Institute of Welders to come up with a new initiative to certify our welders in-country.

“We have started discussing with them and also supporting them so that they become certified internationally as soon as possible to certify welders in Nigeria. For engineers and geologists, they can compete anywhere in the world once we give them the opportunity to go and have an M.Sc or PhD, they are taken up in the global industry.

On why they come back to Nigeria after training abroad, she said that most of them want to come back home and we still have the challenge of getting them jobs.

“Our mandate is to train them and not find them jobs but if you train people and they don’t work, it is counter-productive. So we are hoping that the industry learns more and more about what the PTDF is doing and begin to absorb the graduates.

On what the organization is doing in the areas of local content development, she said: “All we do in the PTDF is local content ranging from the scholarship, upgrade of the universities, setting up of the ICT centres and the endowment for research in Nigeria universities.

On local scholarship scheme, she said: We started the local scholarship scheme last year with the undergraduate and this year we will expand it to MSc and PhD. It is in the process and before the end of this year, you will see it. We will also advertise it in the papers. We have 25 students in the universities where we have upgrade and we have upgrades in each of the federal universities in Nigeria and we intend to expand it in future.