England star Rachel Yankey will be stepping off the pitch and into the classroom next week when she shares her experiences and expertise to help deliver an FA Women’s Football coaching workshop in Botswana.

Yankey is taking part in The FA’s International Development Programme (IDP) ahead of preparing for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2007 in China in September.

England will be competing in the tournament for the first time since 1995 and Yankey played a pivotal role in helping Hope Powell’s team reach the finals.

The 27-year-old has been part of the England women’s set-up since making her senior debut back in August 1997 and has seen first-hand how the female game has progressed in this country in the past decade.

Women’s football has increased in popularity over the last 10 years and remains the fastest-growing sport among young girls in England. FIFA has also invested heavily in developing female soccer, with The FA taking a lead role in sharing its knowledge by delivering seminars on the subject in its UEFA-CAF Meridian Project partner countries Botswana and Lesotho.

Yankey told TheFA.com: “I have never been to southern Africa so I am really looking forward to it. My father is Ghanaian and everyone has always said that I should go over to Africa to experience what it is really like.

“I’m hoping to learning a lot out there myself about how football is coached and I would like to be able to share some of the experience I have as a football coach.

“It’s always good to see other coaching methods in practice to see how we can borrow elements and make suggestions that could improve the experience for others.

“Women’s football has got a lot better in England, as has the coaching. And if we can go to places like Botswana and Lesotho, I am sure it will give their coaches, both male and female a real boost.

“From a personal point of view, it will be interesting for me to see how football is coached to girls in Africa because we will be facing a couple of African teams in the World Cup in China in September.”

The England star will be joined by FA football development manager Tony McCallum and Jo Meloni, a specialist sports college director, who will both deliver various sessions focusing on training local coaches to be able to deliver women’s football coaching.

After the workshop in Botswana, Yankey will return to her day job of running her own football coaching school in north west London, while Tony McCallum and Jo Meloni will head to Lesotho to deliver another’s women’s football coaching workshop to school teachers and local coaches in Maseru.

The FA has demonstrated its ongoing commitment to developing girls’ football through its IDP and this will be the third time that Lesotho has received guidance as to how to raise the profile of the female game, while Botswana received its first taste of girls’ football in October 2006.

The FA-run girls’ football workshops have been popular among the participants. And, crucially in countries such as Botswana and Lesotho, have empowered the women and girls taking part in the sessions to which they would not normally have access.