Current Standards


To achieve its purpose to get More People, More Active, More Often, the health & fitness industry needs to become more market oriented, which means that it should listen to its users and to deliver according to their needs. It should therefore shift from an inward, product focus, to an outward, customer focus. For fitness occupations this means they should aim at delivering the experiences and results that people need, giving these jobs a real purpose. Job qualifications, that is the knowledge, skills and competencies - should enable the achievement of these job purposes.

The focus for the future should not be on qualifications, but on the outcomes of the work. Education should become more job purpose or output driven instead of qualification or input driven. And the learner should be central to the process.

What a person should know and be able to do in a certain fitness occupation depends on an understanding of the purpose of that role. This can only be achieved through delivering certain work outcomes and in meeting expectations of performance. In other words, learning outcomes should be determined by desired work and customer requirements delivered in a quality controlled way. A job is only performed well if it achieves what it is supposed to achieve.

Therefore, from the EHFA Standards Council, the correct way to determine the content of specific job qualification is:

  1. To define the purpose of the occupation
  2. To determine which work outcomes (output) lead to achieving that purpose
  3. To determine which qualifications (knowledge, skills, competencies, range of application) are necessary to be able to deliver those outcomes

Any definition of occupational purpose should include the interests of the major stakeholders, which in case of the Health & Fitness Industry are:

-      for the participant: fitness results from safe, effective exercise

-      for the professional: meaningful work, and recognition of achievement

-      for the business/facility: more participation/members/profit

-      for the Industry:  "more people, more active, more often"

These together form the desired work outcomes of an occupation. And the qualifications for fitness occupations should be solely based on the achievement of their purpose.


You can download the current EHFA standards: 

EQF levels 3 & 4, here

EQF level 2, here