Akwa Ibom Governor Udom Emmanuel has indicated he will bear the cost of a fully-funded scholarship for 100 youths at Metallurgical Training Institute (MTI), Onitsha, Anambra state.
Out of 109 candidates whose application forms were procured in November 2020 by the State Chief Executive for the entrance examination into the institute, 100 candidates passed and will depart the state later this week for their studies.
Recall that the youths drawn from the 31 local government areas departed Uyo on December 4, 2020, ahead of their December 5, 2020 entrance examination and have concluded admission, documentation and medical processes through the supervising Ministry, the Ministry of Trade and Investment.
The Honourable Commissioner for the supervising Ministry, Prince Ukpong Akpabio disclosed that according to their preferred course of study, 44 students will undergo National Diploma for two years and 56 students will undergo MTI Diploma for three years.
On selection process, Akpabio explained that information about the MTI training came shortly after application for Ibom 3000 project was announced and the first 109 applicants for Oil and Gas across the 31 LGAs were selected for the MTI entrance examination.
According to the Trade and Investment Boss, “like in the Ibom 3000 project, Governor Udom Emmanuel has again made a bold statement through the MTI scholarship that he is committed to human capacity development and ensuring that youths in the State are well equipped to feed job opportunities in the Ibom Deepseaport, OCP Africa $1.4bn Fertilizer Plant etc, and even outside the shores of the state”.
“Empowering these 100 Akwa Ibom youths means empowering one hundred families and even one hundred generations,” he added.
MTI is a foremost institution under the Ministry of Mines and Steel, saddled with the responsibility of training and development of Nigeria in areas like Mechanical Maintenance Engineering, Electrical Electronics Engineering, Steel Welding and Fabrication Engineering, Computer, Engineering, Computer Science, Heavy Mobile Equipment Engineering, Instrumentation and Control Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.