Enacting Competency-Based Education in Technical and Vocational Higher Education Institutions in Africa: An Integrative Review of Policy, Pedagogy, and Practice

Competency-based education has become a central strategy for strengthening higher education responsiveness to labour market demands across Africa. Technical and vocational higher education institutions have increasingly adopted competency-oriented reforms, yet persistent gaps remain between policy intentions and classroom practice. This integrative review synthesises theoretical and empirical literature to examine how competency-based education has been enacted within these institutions across twelve African countries. The synthesis identifies five interconnected dimensions that shape enactment, namely policy transformation, pedagogical reform, assessment redesign, institutional capacity and educator development, and industry engagement. The findings demonstrate that weakness in any single dimension compromises the entire reform process. Successful enactment depends on coherent curriculum design, student-centred pedagogy, authentic assessment, and sustained industry collaboration. The review argues that competency-based education should be understood as comprehensive institutional transformation rather than curriculum reform alone, offering practical insights for emerging systems such as Rwanda.