The National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the nation’s IT Policy implementing agency has announced its 2014/2015 scholarship scheme.

NITDA instituted the scholarship in 2010 for Masters (MSc) and Doctorate (PhD) degrees in relevant areas of Information Technology (IT) obtainable in national or foreign universities, the government agency said.

NITDA which was set up with mandate to transform Nigeria into an IT-driven economy for global competitiveness and also bridge the global divide, said the new round of scholarship will be given on merit.

According to the agency, the scholarship scheme is strictly based on merit and is equally distributed among the six geo-political zones for PhD and the thirty-six states and FCT for MSc. The MSc programme will run for one year while the PhD programme is expected to run for three years, NITDA says.

According to the agency, serving lecturers in universities with MSc in any IT related field are eligible to apply for the PhD scholarship. Applicants for MSc must be citizens of Nigeria with a first class or second class (upper) Barchelor’s degree honours in IT related fields.

Eligible candidates that are interested should register via scholarship.nitda.gov.ng. Successful applicants will be subjected to a comprehensive aptitude test, NITDA says.