What criteria do oil companies operating in Nigeria use in determining beneficiaries of tertiary education scholarships?
The majors, Shell, Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco, in joint venture with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) provide a bulk of the tertiary education scholarships in selected disciplines. They periodically advertise in national dailies annually and stipulate their conditions and criteria. Only a small proportion of applicants ultimately get the scholarships. The criteria appear skewed in favour of those from oil-producing areas, who do well in special selection aptitude tests and interviews. Applicants studying engineering, medicine and business-related courses stand a better chance.
