CBTE Must Continue Formation Beyond Graduation

Competency-Based Theological Education (CBTE), the name used most commonly in international literature, promises more than completion of courses. It asks whether learners can integrate what they know, who they are becoming and what they can do in ministry. This article uses CBTE for contextual, mentored formation in Bible colleges and churches. It is distinct from Kenya's general occupational Competency-Based Education and Training, or CBET.

A credible CBTE graduation decision can say that a learner demonstrated published competencies through sufficient evidence under defined conditions. It cannot say that the graduate will remain equally ready for every future congregation, technology, conflict, safeguarding challenge or responsibility. Contexts change. Knowledge grows. Power tests character in ways that supervised learning may not reveal. Ministry itself continues to form the minister.

Graduation should therefore be a trustworthy threshold, not a lifetime warranty. CBTE will serve the church and the public more faithfully when completion leads into continuing learning, reflective supervision and proportionate review—without turning formation into perpetual institutional surveillance.

On 22 October 2026, the Commission for University Education reported on Kenya's draft Competency-Based Education Framework for University Education. The underlying vice-chancellors' conference occurred on 21 August. The notice calls universities to reconsider curriculum, assessment, quality assurance, progression, recognition of prior learning, digital learning and institutional capacity as the first school CBE cohort approaches higher education. Commission for University Education, 22 October…