Baseball Kenya has rolled out training for sports teachers across the country ahead of the introduction of the discipline in the secondary school games calendar.
The national body of the sport, in collaboration with the Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association (KSSSA) will be offering training clinics to physical education teachers as a key intervention in popularising it in the country.
Kenya is preparing coaches ahead of Dakar Youth Olympics, where Baseball5 will feature, with a likelihood of Kenya representing Africa at the Youth Olympics.
Baseball Federation of Kenya (BFK) president Titus Mutwiri said Kisii County was picked as a pilot region where trainers of young sportsmen will be oriented to the sport in readiness for the adoption by more institutions.
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“We have so many young people with unexploited talent in the sport, and our key goal is to bring as many of them on board as we can reach,” Mutwiri said.
Mutwiri said there was a need for the country to leverage the position of Kenya’s global ranking in the sport to book space in the future Olympic Games.
“Our country is currently in position nine in the global space, and we are hopeful of being among the top five baseball5 countries,” he said.
“Physical education teachers are the best placed to nurture young talents in schools, and now that it will be among the examinable sports subjects, we are hoping to rope in as many talents as possible,” Kerubo Momanyi, chairperson of the federation in Kisii, said.
In the entire region of South Nyanza, only Migori County has picked up the sport and already has players who have made international debuts.
Roda Mong’ina, a teacher at Tambacha Secondary School who is among the beneficiaries of the trainings, said the low popularity of the sport in many parts of the country has made it a difficult undertaking for teachers without proper skills and knowledge of the game, especially now that it will be part of the examinable sports.
“The training has come in handy, and it will equip unprepared tutors with the necessary skills and knowledge about the game,” Mong’ina said.