ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - As the Kurdistan Region continues to boom and job opportunities increase, the coming years will see a shortage of local skilled workers if more steps are not taken to increase local workforce capability.
In recognition of this, and as an investment in the future of both Kurdistan and its oil and gas industry, the Kurdistan Merit Scholarship Program was established this year by Marathon Oil, a US-based international and independent company and its partner, Total, along with the Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources.
The scholarship provides financial support for up to seven high school students from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to pursue studies in petroleum-related fields at Texas A&M University, which is world-renowned for excellence in the field. The first group of students to receive the scholarship will commence studies in mid-January 2014.
“It’s the first scholarship program of its kind in Kurdistan for undergraduate study abroad,” said Adel Chaouch, Marathon’s president and general manager in Kurdistan.
He said the scholarship was established to give high school students from Kurdistan the opportunity to study abroad, with the intention the students will return to Kurdistan and become tomorrow’s leaders in the oil and gas industry.
The scholarship program was developed as part of Marathon’s commitment to the development of the Kurdistan Region through the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program.
CSR initiatives are based on a company’s beliefs that it is responsible for its actions socially, ethically and environmentally wherever it operates. Initiatives usually cover education, health, environmental stewardship, human rights support and civil society building.
Marathon established a similar scholarship program in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 and following that, in Gabon in 2005, both of which have been very successful.
The blueprint of the program was brought to Kurdistan from West Africa and was shaped to fit the local context.
An extensive media campaign was broadcast on television and radio across Iraqi Kurdistan, advertising the Merit Scholarship program to potential students.
As part of the program, students will gain hands-on experience during summer field internships with Marathon.
While the internships may be in the Kurdistan Region, Chaouch said it is just as likely they could be in Marathon’s other areas of operations in Africa, Europe or North America.
Based on their academic merits, students will study geology, geophysics or one of five engineering disciplines – petroleum, mechanical, civil, electrical or chemical and processing.
Marathon provides logistical support for the scholarship program, but Texas A&M is entirely responsible for the screening, interviewing and selection of students.
To be eligible for the scholarship program students must have demonstrated excellent academic performance by scoring at least 90 or above in their Grade 6 final exam and be slated to graduate from a high school in Kurdistan in the year of application. They also must be interested in studying an oil and gas discipline at Teaxs A&M and not be married.
As students first undertake at least six months of intensive English as a Second Language Training, knowing English is not a pre-requisite to be eligible for the program.
Ian McIntosh, technical advisor to the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources, noted that as the oil and gas industry in Kurdistan matures, companies do not want to rely on expatriate staff. Their goal is to employ more skilled Kurds, and getting students interested in the industry and studying the right programs is a vital step in this goal being realized.
Chaouch said Marathon’s recent discovery of oil and gas confirms they will have a continuous presence in the region in the coming years.
“As we expand our operations in the coming years, we’ll be looking for talented Kurdish students who can quickly grow to be leaders,” he said.
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