Dickson offers automatic employment to medical doctors, P.hd, MSc holders

Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, has offered automatic employment to 307 products of the state Scholarship Scheme who have completed their doctorate and masters decree programmes in various disciplines in universities across the world.

A statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media Relations, Fidelis Soriwei, yesterday quoted the governor as having declared automatic employment for 107 PhD holders and 200 MSC degree holders during a meeting with beneficiaries of the scheme in Yenagoa.

He also announced automatic employment to all medical doctors, pharmacists, public health specialists and other beneficiaries of the scheme who studied professional courses critical to the ongoing efforts to develop the state.

Disckson told the audience that the 107 PhD holders would be deployed to the Niger Delta University (NDU), University of Africa and the Bayelsa Medical University (BMU) as lecturers.

He stated also that the state government would engage others who studied medicine and other professional courses at Master Degree level in its various medical facilities and the state civil service.

The beneficiaries of the scheme returned with PhDs and MSCs in Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Engineering, International Relations, Pharmacy Practice and Public Health.

Others are Computing and Electronics System, Gas Turbine Engineering, Natural Resources Management, Environmental Law and Management, as well as Statistics, among others.

However, the governor noted that the Scholarship Scheme, which was designed to send Bayelsa scholars to universities across the world, came at heavy sacrifice and cost to the government.

He stressed that while the cost of sending the scholars outside the country was huge, investment in education and human capacity development was the only way to wrest the state from underdevelopment, oppression and poverty.

Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries Dr. Jude Cocodia, a lecturer with NDU, commended Dickson his revolution in the state’s education sector.

He said that the state was already feeling the positive impact of sustained investments in education, especially at the NDU, which is host to most of the beneficiaries.