The History of Coach Education in Flanders

Abstract

From an international perspective, it is indispensable to shed light on the education and certification of sports coaches within different countries in order to exchange good practices and facilitate international collaboration. This article highlights the past, present and future of coach education in Flanders, Belgium. A historical overview of the main initiatives of public, private and academic partners and their shifting relationships with regard to coach education provides insight into the establishment of the current Flemish School for Coach Education, a unique cooperative association between the public government, private sports federations and academic institutes for physical education. Key elements of the Flemish coach education system are presented: mission, organisation and partnerships, framework, competence model, learning pathways/culture and quality assurance. Important future steps involve the transition from a linear framework to a context-specific and nonlinear alternative, based on long-term athlete and coach development models, rethinking coach competences for all programs and implementing a blended learner-based approach with more focus on unmediated, nonformal mediated and internal learning situations.

Principles of Good Assessment Practice in Coach Education: An Initial Proposal

“…Since 2009, football coach education programmes in Flanders (Belgium) have been organised by the Vlaamse Trainersschool (VTS; Flemish School for Coach Education), a cooperative association comprising of the government, private sport federations, and academic institutes for physical education (Vangrunderbeek & Ponnet, 2020). Each year, nearly 6,000 coaches are certified by VTS in over 50 different sports.…”

“…In many cases, this has meant that the coach is observed in standalone coaching performance, within a simulated environment, at the very end of the programme of study. Or, in some cases, a written examination is required to test knowledge and understanding (Vangrunderbeek & Ponnet, 2020). The resultant award or certification communicates to sport coaching stakeholders (e.g., employers, sport participants, coaching peers, and parents) that a certain standard has been met.…”

The Flemish Interactive Coaching Monitoring System

“…FICOMS also makes it possible to establish relationships between characteristics of coaches and sports participation (data from 2014-2019). Since the Flemish School for Coach Education (VTS) is responsible for coach education in Flanders (Vangrunderbeek & Ponnet, 2020), FICOMS gives full insight in relation to coaches obtaining new qualifications (data from 1960-present) and the content of coach education programmes (data from 2010-present).…”

“…Although not systematic, also many PE qualifications before 2008 are registered in the database. In the work of Vangrunderbeek & Ponnet (2020), different pathways for obtaining a qualification are described, such as pathways for former elite athletes. Indeed, VOTAS contains a lot more information than simply qualifications.…”

“…FICOMS has been developed to monitor input, throughput and output of coaching in Flanders (figure 3) so that policymakers can intervene quickly when performance indicators change. With regard to input, there is permanent monitoring of the background (i.e., age, gender, residence, sport, sports club, sports federation, PE-background) of coaches starting a coach education programme and the different pathways that coaches follow in their coach education (Vangrunderbeek & Ponnet, 2020). FICOMS is installed to also monitor the throughput, meaning the characteristics of coach education programmes (i.e., modules, items, hours, success ratios) and coach developers (i.e., age, gender, residence, courses, theory vs. practice hours), monitoring differences between sports and benchmarking the coach education programmes with other countries.…”