'If I had CBE, I’d compete better globally': Olunga on sports science pathway
Michael Olunga, captain of Kenya’s national football team, the Harambee Stars, during a training session at Utalii Grounds in Nairobi.
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When Michael Olunga, captain of Kenya’s national football team, the Harambee Stars, and striker for Al Arabi AC in Qatar, speaks about the future of Kenyan sports, his words carry the weight of lived experience.
He has seen firsthand the challenges of turning raw talent into a professional career.
For him, Kenya’s Competency-Based Education (CBE) system offers a turning point: “If I had gone through CBE as a young boy, I would have been in a much better position to compete globally,” he says.
For decades, Kenya has celebrated flashes of brilliance in football, athletics, and the arts, yet the country has struggled to harness this potential consistently. The celebrated footballer is quick to interject:
“Sports and art is a very big industry, not only football, athletics, drama, everything involved. Football, sports, arts in general, they normally pay, and they pay handsomely, you know.”
The introduction of the Arts and Sports Science Pathway within the CBE curriculum marks a deliberate shift in sports-related fields, creative arts, and performing arts , according to the Harambee Stars Captain.
It signals that talent is not just an extracurricular hobby but a viable, structured career track, one as important as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) or the social sciences.
“Once talent is identified early, we can propel it to greater heights with proper training, whether in football, athletics, or drama,” he says.
This is the essence of the new CBE approach, enabling learners to grow in line with their strengths, not just exam performance.
Education, Olunga, an Engineer by profession, insists, remains critical.
“Education and football can complement each other. That is what we want, young people with options, whether plan A, B, or C,” he says.
Michael Olunga during a training session at the Utalii Sport Grounds, Nairobi
With this prioritisation, he observed, sport is no longer viewed merely as games; it is an industry. Footballers, athletes, and creatives contribute to economies, inspire nations, and place countries on the global stage.
As Kenya prepares to host AFCON 2027 and invests billions in facilities such as Talanta Sports City and county stadiums, the synergy between education reform and sports development is becoming unmistakable.
Deputy President Kithure Kindiki recently noted that making sports and the arts a CBE pathway will give thousands of young Kenyans structured opportunities.
Already, 38 out of 290 targeted sports academies are under construction, and the Kenya Academy of Sports is being reconstituted to support this talent pipeline.
For Olunga, the real test lies in whether CBE will reach the villages where untapped talent often goes unnoticed.
“For the longest time, we have had big opportunities in sports, but we have not managed to harness the potential that we have in this country. But now, with the introduction of CBE, I hope the system will give an opportunity to young talents , to young pupils, to young students who are coming up. They are very talented, but they are limited. I hope that it can reach even the people in ‘mashinani’, we have very, very good talent in the grassroots that normally goes unnoticed,” he says.
His own Michael Olunga Foundation and Football Academy (MOFA) demonstrates what is possible when opportunity meets support.
“With proper education, parents will understand that sports and the arts are careers. A player from my academy, Michael Olunga Football Academy, was the main striker for the Kenyan Under 20 team at the
AFCON, and now he just got himself a move to go to Finland at the top league,” he noted.
In just three years, MOFA has sponsored 100 boys, producing players who have competed nationally and even moved abroad, like a recent graduate who signed with a Finnish top-league club.
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