The Executive Secretary of Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Dr Bello Aliyu Gusau, has revealed that the Fund is currently reviewing its engagement with many universities across the globe with preference on tuition-free universities.

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He made this known when a team from a leading Australian academic and research institution, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, led by the institution’s Vice President, External Relations, Fiona Docherty, paid a courtesy visit to the PTDF head-office in Abuja.

Gusau described as a welcome development, a collaboration with the University, saying the proposal for the partnership was timely as PTDF was reviewing its engagement with many universities abroad.

He said, “we have,  in the last decade, sent students across the globe. Most of our engagements are in the United Kingdom and lately we expanded to Germany and China.

“We are looking at the value of accumulated expertise in different countries and in specific areas we are concerned with, that is oil and gas and energy.

“As we are dealing with hundreds and thousands of students, we are also looking at the cost. So,  it is a very important selling point for us if we can commence discussion with you, especially as we are in the midst of reviewing our engagements across the globe,” he said.

The PTDF boss, therefore, directed the Education and Training Department of PTDF to commence collaborative discussions with the Australian university, expressing confidence of a meaningful outcome that would form the basis for sustained relationship between the university and PTDF.

Leader of the delegation, Fiona Docherty, in her remarks, sought collaboration with the PTDF in the area of petroleum and energy research and related academic activities.

She said the institution wanted  to benefit from PTDF’s international reputation as the leading agency of the Nigerian government for capacity building in the oil and gas industry.

She said the transparency and integrity of the PTDF’s management of the overseas scholarship scheme came to bare  in the emergence of exceptional scholars some of whom had recorded breakthroughs in their areas of study and research.

Docherty said Nigeria’s global reputation informed the university administration’s decision to list it among the countries in Africa they were desirous of strengthening academic ties with.

According to her, “I have been to Uganda and my colleagues are coming from Kenya but my first option has always been Nigeria because Nigeria has a global reputation. We are here to acknowledge that and to understand how we might deepen ties between Australia and Nigeria.

“We are poised to host some of your sponsored students and I want you to have faith in our university because it is committed. We have been doing it on petroleum and renewable energy sector and I hope the Australian experience is paying dividends not just for PTDF but for your national energy strategy,” Docherty stressed.

She outlined petroleum engineering and renewable energy as two of the possible areas of collaboration between PTDF and the Australian university which she said could form the basis for a national energy strategy between the two countries.

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