The Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson, has offered automatic employment to 307 products of the Bayelsa State Scholarship Scheme who had concluded their doctorate and masters programmes in various disciplines in universities across the world.
Other beneficiaries of the automatic employment scheme are medical doctors, 200 Msc holders pharmacists and public health specialists.
The Governor told the ecstatic audience at the weekend meeting with the beneficiaries in Yenagoa that the 107 PhD holders would be deployed to the three state-owned universities – the Niger Delta University, University òf Africa and the Bayelsa Medical University – as lecturers, while those who studied medicine and other professional courses at Masters level would be engaged by the state Government in the various medical facilities and the civil service respectively.
The beneficiaries of the scheme returned with PhDs and MSC in disciplines such as Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Agricultural Economics, Agric engineering, International relations, Pharmacy Practice, Public Health, Computing and Electronics System, Gas turbine engineering, Natural Resources Management, Environmental Law and Management, Statistics and others.
He stressed that while the cost of sending the scholars outside the country was quite huge, investment in education and human capacity development was the only way to wrest the state from clutches of underdevelopment, oppression and poverty.
He said, “We should not forget to invest in education. The reason we are where we are is because of lack of education, the reason people take away our resources with impunity is lack of education.
“The mindless degradation of our own environment, the acts of impunity against our people and their environment, what I call environmental terrorism, is because of the backwardness in education.
“While it is good to build roads, hospitals, edifices, for the state, investment in human capacity is the most important. All the others can collapse but the investment in human capacity development will endure.”
“I had the intention to send out an army of scholars across the globe but the recession stalled that plan. Several programmes including the scheme suffered stagnation as a result of the recession, the worst in the history of our country.
The Governor assured beneficiaries of the scholarship scheme still in various universities within and outside the country that the state government would ensure the release of funds next week to gradually address the issues of outstanding bills in the various which are host to them.
He directed the Scholarship Board to commence the process to immediately settle the outstanding bills of scholars who have concluded their studies and needed their certificates for promotion or upgrading as well those who want to further their studies.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries who studied for PhD, Dr, Jude Cocodia, a lecturer at the Niger Delta University, commended Governor Dickson his bold revolution in the education sector in the state.
He said that the state was already feeling the positive impacts of years of sustained investments in education especially at the NDU, which is host to a large number of the beneficiaries.
The Governor has earlier offered automatic employment to 31 First Class graduates and 1000 young graduates into the state civil service who received their letters of employment in January, 2019.
