14 July 2022 – World football governing body FIFA and the South African Football Association’s (SAFA) Coaching Education department are currently hosting a Coach Educators’ Course at the SAFA National Technical Centre (Fun Valley) in the south of Johannesburg.
The course began on Wednesday under the FIFA Expert on site, Giovani Fernandes, and will run until 17 July 2022. It is a continuation of the annual FIFA-approved courses that all Member Associations around the world can apply for as per their needs. It follows closely on the heels of the recently concluded FIFA-approved Goalkeeper Coaches course. Many more will be following to ensure that no SAFA coach educator is excluded.
The SAFA Coaching Education Department is mandated by the SAFA NEC to educate aspirant coaches to become the very best versions of themselves based on their talent, desire, motivation and dedication.
One of the priorities of Coaching Education Department is the continuous improvement of the coaches to meet the ever increasing demands of modern Football. Part of the strategy is to improve those who educate the coaches, namely, the Coach educator, popularly known as the instructors.
As these coach educators are actually the teachers, it is therefore an obligation to continuously work on enhancing their facilitation, assessment and moderation skills. Their understanding of the teaching and learning principles must remain current so as to sustain the interest of those they lead in the education process.
Since the coach educators are dealing with other people in coaches, they should continuously improve their understanding of how these “öthers” learn so as to bring the very best out of them. The coach educators should muster the art of creating positive environments which will challenge and stretch their candidates to greater heights.
On the field during practical sessions, the coach educators should improve their skills of conducting examples of practice sessions that aim to improve the players, groups and the entire team. Here the purpose is to be able to demonstrate to the coaches that they will be leading during the coaching courses. While the target is the C License, the lessons cut across all the diplomas. While the main task of the coach educators is to educate the coaches, they must also learn to be educated themselves.
The FIFA/SAFA Coach Educators’ Course will help the participants know more about:
• themselves:
• football;
• the Coach Educator’s role;
• teaching and learning;
• observations and assessments;
• feedback and feedforward
They will be able to:
• evaluate and reflect on coach educators’ “best practices”;
• improve ability to facilitate theoretical and practical sessions for coaches;
• positively influence the learning and development process of coaches;
• improve coach observation and assessment process;
• help others identify their own performance gap and create their individual development
plan; and
• effectively plan and prepare coaching courses