News from the Australian Sports Commission

A majority of Wushu and Tai Chi coaches in Australia have been led to believe that their businesses and careers are dependent on being accredited by the NSO for Wushu. The latest registered entities were the Australian Kung Fu Wushu Federation (AKWF) and Kung Fu Wushu Australia (KWA)). This has been under the framework of the National Coaching Accreditation Scheme (NCAS) launched in 1979 by the Australian Coaching Council. The NCAS was supposed “to collate and standardise the existing knowledge base on coaching and provide a platform for National Sporting Organisations (NSOs) to develop courses and accreditation criteria that service all levels of coaching from community club level through to high performance”. In addition, the National Officiating Accreditation Scheme (NOAS) was launched in 1994.

Following the review of NCAS / NOAS in 2012, the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) changed its approach and provided each individual sport with the opportunity to independently develop and maintain its own coaching and officiating frameworks and programs.

“With the shift from ‘compliance’ to ‘support’, there was no longer a need for a system whereby the ASC would approve and register the various coaching and officiating frameworks and programs. As a result, from September 2017, the ASC has retired the NCAS and NOAS programs.(emphasis added)

For several decades, participation in NCAS / NOAS was one of the most important instruments for NSOs to attract members and generate some legitimate profit from accreditation. According to the ASC, implementation of NCAS / NOAS did not mean that the Australian Government accredits individual coaches or officials, however, some NSOs have claimed that their instructors are government-accredited. For example:

Source: http://kungfuwushuaustralia.com/who_are_we.php

This what the ASC states:

Source: https://www.ausport.gov.au/site_tools/contact_us#pos8

The retirement of NCAS / NOAS removes the existing confusion about the ASC’s involvement in the accreditation of individual coaches and officials. All coaches and officials are (and were) accredited by their National Sporting Organisations. They are not government-accredited coaches / officials and this is a misrepresentation of their status. They are NSO-accredited coaches and officials.

 

For more details see the ASC’s website: https://www.ausport.gov.au/participating/coachofficial/frameworks