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IAAF Coaches Education and Certification System

Introduction

Recognising that the resources and effort involved in developing an education programme may be beyond capabilities on a national level, the IAAF operates a Coaches Education and Certification System (CECS) which is available as a service to Member Federations which would like to make use of it.As from March 2007, the CECS features five levels of courses operating in seven languages, English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Portuguese.

For each course level the IAAF provides a standard syllabus, qualified lecturers and the necessary learning support materials. Financial resources for the system come from the IAAF and its Area associations, Olympic Solidarity and other partners on the international and national levels, as well as self-funded options at the higher levels.

Operation of CECS is co-ordinated by the IAAF Member Services Department (MSD) and the IAAF Regional Development Centres (RDCs).The new 5-Level CECS structure has been created to specifically address the following areas (see Fig 1 PDF and Fig 2 PDF). Entry to the CECS is either through the Level I or Level II course which are staged nationally and are designed to train a large number of coaches who can work with athletes in specific phases of the Athlete Development Pathway.

Note: Individuals interested in attending a Level I or Level II course should contact their National Federation directly. Level III and Level IV courses are normally staged at the RDCs and are designed for a smaller number of coaches who will have specialist duties within their Federation. The Level V is the IAAF Academy programme. For further details of the 5 Levels of award see Table 1 PDF and below.

Implementation of the new System

The change from any system to a new system requires the management of change (see Fig. 3 PDF).

Transfer from the old system

All coaches who are active will require transfer on the database from their old qualification and eligibility to the new structure, and subsequently informed of their new status. The global transfer date will be January 1st 2009. Table 2 PDF illustrates how this process of transfer will take place. If you have questions, please first read all the PDFs shown linked to this page.

Supporting Documents and Diagrams
1	IAAF Coaches Education and Certification System (PDF)
2	Fig 1 - CECS Structure Diagram (PDF)
3	Fig 2 - Athlete Development and CECS (PDF)
4	Table 1 - Levels of the New CECS (PDF)
5	The Role of the Level I - II Coach (PDF)
6	Fig 3 - Implementation New CECS (PDF)
7	Table 2 - Transfer to new CECS (PDF)