Ten lucky Kenyan first degree holders will benefit from masters course scholarships from Tullow Oil.

The 2013/2014 Tullow Group scholarships scheme offers masters studies in oil and gas related course include engineering and technology, geosciences, oil, gas economics, supply chain and journalism.

A total of 114 beneficiaries will be drawn from countries that the company has its operations, among them Kenya, Congo Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Uganda, Uruguay and Suriname.

This will be the second group after the first batch of 10 from the 2012/2013 academic year were sent to various universities in Europe. The scheme is aimed at bridging existing industry capacity gap in Tullow's host countries and addressing national capacity development requirements.

Higher education minister Margaret Kamar recently said Kenya lacks 30,000 engineers need for the ongoing large scale projects and emerging mining sectors including oil, coal, minerals.