At the end of March 2023, EDUGOLF partners from across Europe convened in the beautiful city of Malmö, Sweden, for the 5th full partner meeting, hosted by PGA of Sweden. EDUGOLF runs from January 2021 – December 2023 and is jointly led by the Confederation of Professional Golf (CPG) and the European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE). EDUGOLF is co-funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ Sport programme.
With a clear focus on growing the game, EDUGOLF’s overall aim is to modernise education and training to meet the changing skills needs of golf in Europe. EDGA’s Head of Instruction & Education, Mark Taylor was in attendance to help further develop capacity and resources to support coaches around the G4D (Golf for the disabled) space.
PROGRESS SO FAR: RESEARCH AND OCCUPATIONAL STANDARDS
As the project enters its final year, Wojciech Waśniewski (CPG) was pleased to report that the first planned output from the project, the European Research Report on the Changing Realities and Tendencies of the Golf Labour Market and Education Requirements, was now finalised and being prepared for publication in the summer of 2023.
Geoff Carroll (EOSE) updated the partners on the second main output, a comprehensive framework of occupational standards, knowledge and skills for the industry. The framework contains over 100 standards covering all key areas of strategic and operational management, sales and marketing, community engagement, game development, events, and all levels of coaching from introductory to elite performance. The standards, skills and knowledge framework is almost ready, with only some minor reformatting and amendments to be done.
NEW EDUCATION AND TRAINING
With outputs 1 and 2 almost ready, the partners turned their attention to the third output, an Education and Training Handbook for Golf in Europe. The handbook will provide advice, direction and guidance for the development of learning programmes to help professionals in golf (both paid and volunteers) reach the competence required to work in a variety of roles in golf matching the requirements of the occupational standards.
Having endorsed the structure and content of the handbook at their last meeting in Warsaw, the partners divided into breakout groups to begin developing a series of learning module outlines for coaching, game development and management. These module outlines will form a vital section of the handbook by giving training providers guidance on topic areas, learning outcomes, European Qualification Framework (EQF) levels, credit values, suggested content, delivery and assessment methods for each of the modules.
Each group used the occupational standards to identify priority topic areas, developed some preliminary module outlines and agreed a process to complete the task through future online meetings.
INNOVATIVE ONLINE LEARNING
The next major task for the partners in Malmö was to finalise arrangements for the development of innovative online learning courses to support continuing professional development in the industry. The project will use an external online course designer to put the courses together once the partners have identified appropriate content. Three potential topic areas were initially agreed for further development and all partners undertook to seek additional content from their own organisations.
DISSEMINATION
Finally, the partners planned some key dissemination activities to ‘spread the word’ across the golf industry. These activities include national stakeholder workshops in seven European countries in the summer and a final European conference – Modernising Golf Education and Training in Europe – in the last quarter of 2023 which will bring together the industry’s main education and training leads.
After the meeting, Wojciech Waśniewski, Executive Director – Knowledge Development of the Confederation of Professional Golf (CPG) said “From a CPG perspective, it’s really satisfying to see how the key outputs of EDUGOLF are coming together as planned. We can now see how the building blocks for the project’s original vision – growing the European game and retaining the new wave of golfers through more market driven and modern approaches to education and training – are falling into place. With the right support from the industry going forward, EDUGOLF will transform the way we prepare and develop our workforce for many years to come.”
Geoff Carroll, EOSE’s Director for Skills Development commented “EDUGOLF continues to demonstrate EOSE’s fundamental philosophy that workforce development must be firmly based on industry needs and up-to-date flexible approaches to education and training which match those needs. It is pleasing to see how the partners, who represent key national and international stakeholders in the game, have united behind this philosophy and are beginning to see the concrete outcomes.”
Visit the project web page at https://edugolf.eu/ to learn more about the project. You can contact the EDUGOLF project and ask to be kept informed about developments by contacting info@edugolf.eu or subscribe to project updates on the website.
Full list of partners – European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE); Confederation of Professional Golf (CPG); PGA of Sweden; Polish Golf Union (PGU); French Golf Federation (ffgolf); Real Federacion Espanola de Golf (RFEG); PGA of Belgium; EDGA; University of Applied Sciences for Sport and Management Potsdam (ESAB); National University of Ukraine on Physical Education and Sport (NUPPES).