The Malta College for Arts, Science, and Technology (MCAST) hosted the final multiplier event conference of the ‘CoachEd6 – Towards Quality Coaching Education’ project.
CoachEd6 is a project led by MCAST together with, Mugla SItki Kocman University (Turkey), the University of Southern Denmark, and Reykjavik University (Iceland). In the absence of coaching education at higher educational institutions, the project’s main objective was to foster a Level 6 Award in sports coaching.
In the first phase of the project, the four educational institutions teamed up and wrote a number of study units for the award. The International Council of Coaching Excellence (ICCE), assured quality across the development, delivery, and assessment of all units delivered in the Award.
MCAST Principal and CEO Joachim James Calleja said that “The Institute of Community Services (ICS) is growing by the minute. Having 513 MCAST students following qualifications in sports is quite something for Malta. At MCAST we are keen on teaching sports at an academically professional level”.
During the second phase of the project, the academic award was launched and simultaneously delivered in the same way to students in all four educational institutions.
The Final Multiplier Event hosted at the College provided the perfect platform where both students and lecturers shared their learning and teaching experiences.
Senior Lecturer at MCAST’s Institute of Community Services (ICS) Dr. Renzo Kerr Cumbo said, “I believe that the most important element of this project was that students had the opportunity to gain diverse knowledge on sports from different cultures. It also was an enriching learning process for lecturers because of the international nature of the project”
Parliamentary Secretary Chris Bonett said, “I am very proud of this venture, and I was elated to hear that EU funds, more specifically the Erasmus plus programme made this project possible. It is easy to associate EU funds with the large infrastructural projects and whilst those do and will continue to play an important part under my tenure we will be working to make EU funds closer to the people.”
Besides hosting various stakeholders from the field of sports coaching, the conference also welcomed international experts together with the students who were part of the Award in Sports Coaching between 2021 and 2022.
A total of 20 learners were awarded during the conference.