The Sustainable Development Goals assume that global consensus can drive local change. SDG 4 promises quality education. SDG 8 promises decent work. In Technical and Vocational Education and Training, these goals converge: education should produce employable graduates with competencies that labor markets demand.
Competency-Based Education and Training became the framework of choice. Define the competencies. Design training to develop them. Assess whether students achieved them. The logic is clean.
The outcomes are not. In Kenya, fewer than 30% of TVET graduates find employment within one year of program completion.
Our research at Kabete National Polytechnic asked why. Not why in general terms but why specifically: What happens in the space between global policy frameworks and classroom practice? How does knowledge about education-related SDGs get learned and institutionalized within TVET systems? What role does leadership play in preparing teachers to implement frameworks that may not fit local contexts?
These questions sit at the intersection of multiple disciplines: education, workforce development, policy studies, educational leadership, teacher education, philosophy of education. No single disciplinary lens is sufficient. The problem is inherently transdisciplinary.
The Governance of Knowledge Translation
Policy scholars distinguish between policy adoption and policy implementation. Countries can adopt policies, sign agreements, align national frameworks with international standards, and still fail to change practice. Implementation requires translation: global frameworks must become national legislation, national legislation must become institutional policy, institutional policy must become classroom practice.
Each translation involves interpretation. Each interpretation occurs within governance structures that enable or constrain what actors can do. Multi-level governance frameworks, operating across global, continental, national, and institutional scales, mediate these translations.
Kenya’s TVET governance involves multiple bodies: the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TVETA), the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA), and the Competency-Based Education, Training and Assessment body (CBETA). These institutions translate continental frameworks (the African Union’s Agenda 2063, Continental Education Strategy for Africa, Continental Strategy for TVET) and global frameworks (SDGs, UNESCO TVET Strategy) into national standards.
But translation does not stop at the national level. Institutions like Kabete National Polytechnic must translate national standards into operational practice. Teachers must translate curriculum into pedagogy. This final translation, where framework becomes teaching, is where implementation succeeds or fails.
What We Found
Our data revealed a governance structure effective at downward transmission but weak at upward feedback. National bodies successfully harmonized Kenyan standards with continental and global frameworks. But institutional leaders reported limited autonomy to adapt those frameworks to local contexts. When frameworks did not fit, they lacked mechanisms to communicate that mismatch to policymakers.
This matters for teacher preparedness. Teachers implement frameworks they did not design, in contexts policymakers may not understand, for students whose circumstances vary widely. Effective implementation requires teachers who can exercise professional judgment, adapting frameworks to students and contexts. But exercising judgment requires institutional conditions that support it: autonomy, resources, feedback mechanisms, leadership that values adaptation rather than compliance.
We found those conditions largely absent. Faculty development programs transmitted CBET methodology but did not prepare teachers for contextual adaptation. Leaders focused on compliance with national standards rather than supporting teachers’ professional judgment. The governance structure assumed linear transmission: global to continental to national to institutional to classroom. It did not account for the interpretive work required at each translation point.
The Epistemological Question
Behind these governance findings lies a deeper question: What knowledge counts?
CBET frameworks carry epistemological assumptions. They assume that competencies can be defined, measured, and standardized. They assume that labor markets signal what competencies matter. They assume that individual competency attainment is the appropriate unit of assessment.
These assumptions are not universal. They reflect particular intellectual traditions, largely Western, that privilege certain forms of knowledge over others.
African philosophical traditions offer different foundations. Ubuntu emphasizes that personhood is constituted through relationships. “I am because we are.” Knowledge, in this framing, is not individual possession but collective achievement. Harambee, meaning “all pull together” in Kiswahili, centers communal action. Knowledge serves community, not just individual advancement. Ujamaa, developed in Tanzania, prioritizes cooperative economics and shared obligation.
These are not merely cultural values to be respected. They are epistemological frameworks that answer foundational questions differently. What is knowledge for? How is it validated? Who owns it? How should it be transmitted?
If CBET implementation in African contexts continues to assume Western epistemological foundations, it may continue to fail, not because Africans cannot implement CBET, but because the framework itself requires translation at the epistemological level, not just the policy level.
The Leadership Function
Leadership, in this analysis, is not about individual leaders. It is about a function within governance systems: the function of creating conditions under which translation can occur effectively.
Teacher preparedness depends on leadership that supports professional judgment, provides resources for contextual adaptation, creates feedback mechanisms for communicating implementation challenges, and holds space for epistemological diversity in how frameworks get interpreted.
We found leadership at Kabete focused primarily on administrative compliance rather than these translation-supporting functions. This is not a criticism of individuals. It reflects governance structures that reward compliance and constrain adaptation.
Why This Matters Now
The SDG framework emerged from a particular historical moment: post-2015 optimism about global development goals supported by Western donor financing. That moment is ending. The United States, historically the largest bilateral development donor, is restructuring its commitments. The assumption that external financing will support SDG implementation is less reliable.
This shifts the question from “How do we implement global frameworks locally?” to “What institutional capacities allow TVET systems to thrive regardless of external support structures?”
Our research suggests that African philosophical traditions offer resources for that capacity. Ubuntu, Harambee, and Ujamaa are not dependent on external financing. They are indigenous frameworks for collective knowledge generation, community-accountable leadership, and sustainable practice.
The irony is sharp. Western countries championed the SDGs and supported their implementation through development financing. As that financing becomes uncertain, the philosophical resources for sustaining educational transformation may come not from the frameworks Western donors promoted but from African traditions those frameworks often marginalized.
This is not an argument against international cooperation or global educational goals. It is an argument for taking seriously the epistemological diversity that exists within the countries implementing those goals. Translation is not neutral transmission. It requires interpretation. And interpretation requires philosophical foundations. African TVET institutions may find those foundations closer to home than the SDG framework assumed.