CBTE Must Design Articulation Before It Promises Portability

A pastor may have preached faithfully for fifteen years, completed several church training courses, mentored younger leaders and assembled a substantial digital portfolio. A Bible college may be able to assess that learning responsibly. Yet a second college, a university, a qualifications authority and a church ordination body may each need to make a different decision about the same evidence.

This is where an attractive promise becomes dangerous. A certificate can be called stackable without another provider being obliged to accept it. A badge can display a level without belonging to a nationally recognised qualification. Recognition of prior learning can honour experience without automatically producing credit. A Bible-college award can serve churches well without becoming a university award.

Competence-Based Theological Education—more commonly called Competency-Based Theological Education in international literature—should make learning visible and usable without overstating what that evidence authorises. It is distinct from Kenya's general occupational Competency-Based Education and Training, or CBET. Its credibility depends upon designing the receiving pathway before promising that a credential will travel.

The OECD's International Review of Micro-Credential Systems, published on 1 October 2026, compares how countries organise short credentials across higher education, vocational education and non-formal adult learning. It argues that portability and stackability depend on harmonised definitions, transparent learning outcomes, workload, assessment, quality assurance and reference to a qualifications framework. It also documents systems in which micro-credentials…