CBTE Must Govern the Mentor Team

Competency-Based Theological Education is internationally abbreviated as CBTE. Here CBTE means a contextual, mentored and competence-demonstration approach to Bible-college and church-based ministerial formation. It is not the same as Kenya's general occupational Competency-Based Education and Training (CBET), although the two may share language about outcomes, assessment and prior learning.

The mentor team is often presented as CBTE's relational strength. It can connect biblical and theological learning with character, ministry practice and the learner's actual community. Yet a model that depends heavily on mentors can fail precisely where it appears most personal. A respected pastor may be unprepared to assess. A faculty member may carry an impossible caseload. A supervisor may control both a learner's employment and academic progression. A formation conversation may become intrusive evidence. Volunteer labour may make a programme look inexpensive while transferring its true cost to churches, families and already stretched ministers.

The central governance question is therefore not whether mentoring is valuable. It is whether a provider can show that its mentors are competent, appropriately independent, supported, accountable and resourced. Mentoring is not free infrastructure or informal goodwill. It is part of the educational and safeguarding system.

A July 2026 article in Global Missiology reports qualitative research with 14 Kenyan facilitators using Re-Forma's 37 ministry outcomes. The authors describe a mentor-driven model that integrates head, heart and hands and report perceived…