CBTE Must Earn the Right to Certify Competence

A certificate can be beautifully printed, signed by respected leaders and celebrated in worship while leaving its central claim unclear. Did the learner complete a programme? Demonstrate defined ministerial competencies? Receive an institutional award? Become eligible for a nationally recognised qualification? Gain recognition for ordination or employment? Earn academic credit that a university has agreed to accept? These are related questions, but they are not the same question and no institution should collapse them into one.

This distinction is especially important in Competency-Based Theological Education. CBTE means Competency-Based Theological Education and remains distinct from Kenya's general occupational Competency-Based Education and Training, or CBET. The focus here is contextual, mentored formation in Bible colleges and church communities. CBTE also operates in higher education, as the ICETE standards make clear.

CBTE promises that a learner will progress by demonstrating integrated competence rather than merely accumulating attendance. That promise raises the burden of truth. A programme must show what competence means, which evidence is sufficient, who is qualified to judge it, how decisions are moderated, what the certificate authorises and which body recognises it.

The public question is therefore not whether Bible colleges may form and recognise ministers. They have an essential vocation in the Church. The question is whether every educational and qualification claim is proportionate to evidence and made under the proper authority. Religious freedom, educational…