Standing L to R: Matthias Gutt (EOSE), Marit Pellinen (Sport Institute of Finland), Tony Bennett (Director of Education, PGAs of Europe), Mattias Sjogren, (Rector, Boson Sports College), Dr Martin Toms (Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching, University of Birmingham), David Colclough (Head of Member Education, PGA of Great Britain & Ireland), Mikael Sorling (Chief Executive, PGA of Sweden), Ben Gittus (Skills Development and Education Consultant, SkillsActive), Dean Cleaver (Secertary, FEGGA), Martin Hasenbein (PGA of Germany), Valerie Attard (Malta Qualification Council), Anne Boyd (Scottish Qualifications Authority)
The release of the Golf Stand Project Outcome documents marks the culmination of the two-year project. Golf Stand has created a range of indispensable European occupational standards aimed at defining the competences, skills and knowledge needed for those working in the sector as golf professionals.
Golf stand is the working title, which in full reads ‘The European Occupational Standards for Golf’, promoted by Skills Active, with the strong support of The PGAs of Europe and the European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE).
The 16 partner strong consortium brought together national and EU organisations from ten different member states involved in the golf, wider sports and education sectors. Golfing bodies included, the PGAs of GB&I, Sweden, Germany and Italy, Netherlands Golf Association, the European Golf Course Owners Association, Club Managers Association of Europe through the Association of Golf Course Managers of Portugal and FEGGA through the Slovenian Greenkeepers’ Association.
Public authorities concerned with education and sport were also represented in the partnership, with the national qualifications authorities of Scotland and Malta along with the University of Birmingham and the national sports schools of Sweden (Boson) and Finland (Vierumaki).
It is anticipated that the Golf Stand project outcomes will assist employers to better identify staffing needs, develop appropriate job descriptions, fine tune the interview selection process and have greater appreciation of the skills, knowledge and attributes that staff are able to bring to a specific work role. This in turn will allow employers to position their staff in an appropriate role to gain maximum benefit for the business and at the same time help employees to engage in satisfying work.
For many employees in the workforce the opportunity to progress their career is an important consideration. The Golf Stand outcomes provide a clear and comprehensive guide to the competences relevant to a specific work role (occupation) and just as importantly offer a map for the skills, knowledge and attributes that will be needed for the next stage of a chosen career pathway.
Furthermore, The PGAs of Europe have already started to integrate many of the findings to even further strengthen and shape the quality of the European Standard for Professional Education that has been used for recognition of training programmes for more than 20 years cross the Association, and is accepted as the industry standard across the 39 Member Countries.
The Project Outcomes are available for download from the ‘Outcomes’ section of the Golf Stand website (http://bit.ly/U4EJ1g). The Occupational Standards and Quality Assurances documents that form part of these overall outcomes can be requested by filling out the enquiry form at the foot of the Outcomes page.
Golf Stand Project www.golf-stand.com