A sport management programme for educator training in accordance with the diverse needs of South African schools

Abstract

In school sport the professionalisation of sport has reached the domain of school sport as a grassroots incubator for sporting talent and for providing positive experiences that might lead to lifelong engagement in physical activity. This has inevitably led to the development of specialised human resources required to manage school sport. In the South African context, despite the existence of a variety of sport management programmes, there is a need for continuously updated and adapted programmes to address the needs and demands of the market and workplace. To cope with the increased complexities surrounding school sport and the management thereof, a distinct body of knowledge and skills needs to be developed (Quatman & Chelladurai, 2008a:651) for the management of school sport. Concern over the lack of common knowledge, as well as a pertinent sport management programme for educator training to prepare educators for the diverse contemporary requirements and needs regarding the management of school sport, has resulted in current and prospective educators not necessarily meeting the needs or expectations of the industry in a diversity of South African schools to manage school sport. As a result there appears to be a gap between current sport management programmes' outcomes at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)1 in South Africa and the expected competencies of school sport managers. A need thus exists to have a sport management programme in place for educator training in accordance with the diverse needs of South African schools. Based on the preceding, the problem of identifying the needs and competencies of school sport managers required for the sport management training of educators according to the diverse context of South African schools is seen as the central point in this study. In coherence with the problem statement and the stated research questions, the purpose of this research was to determine the needs and competencies of school sport managers in order to develop a sport management programme for educator training according to the diverse needs of schools in South Africa. In order to achieve this, based on the problem statement, it was necessary to: * Determine the context of school sport within the education system; * Describe and delineate the current role of the school sport manager within the education system; * To analyse international and national sport management training programmes as part of educator training; * Determine the needs and competencies required by educators to manage school sport effectively according to the diverse needs of South African schools; and * Develop a sport management training programme for school sport managers according to the diverse needs of South African schools. To be able to develop a sport management programme for educator training, it was necessary to develop a related instrument that was content and context specific. Contextual, descriptive and explorative qualitative research was undertaken by means of a semi-structured interview. After the sport management competencies and needs were identified, a questionnaire (quantitative research), based on the qualitative research and the literature study in Chapters Two, Three and Four was compiled as part of the mixed-methods research design. To make a sound judgement of content and context specific sport management programmes for educator training, an occupation analysis of the identified school sport management competencies and a needs analysis of specific needs required to manage school sport was undertaken by means of a structured questionnaire. Once the competencies and needs required to manage school sport were defined, programme development principles were applied to develop a sport management programme for educator training in accordance with the diverse needs of South African schools. Conclusions drawn from the above-mentioned research include that the school sport management environment is exceptionally varied, politicised and complex. Another conclusion was that competencies required by the school sport manager can be divided into core, functional and specialist competencies, indicating a range of competencies necessary to equip and enable the school sport manager to manage school sport successfully. This phenomenon cannot merely be ignored by HEIs2 when a content and context-specific market and needs-driven sport management programme for educator training in a diversity of South African schools is developed. It is therefore recommended that a school sport management programme be tailored to the content and context-specific needs of society and school sport managers. In the light of the preceding and a continuously changing education landscape in South Africa, it is necessary that the developed sport management programme and related guidelines for a sport management programme for initial educator training in accordance with the diverse needs of South African schools should continuously be supplemented and adapted in a dynamic school sport environment.