Original Research

Reimagining career empowerment in South African TVET: A Freirean critique of policy and pedagogy

Ezekiel Majola

Received: 11 Apr. 2025; Accepted: 03 July 2025; Published: 22 Aug. 2025

Copyright: © 2025. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background: In South Africa, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is often promoted as a means to enhance employability. However, dominant policy frameworks tend to emphasise economic outcomes and labour market alignment, often neglecting the pedagogical dimensions crucial for empowering students.

Objectives: This article aimed to critique the structural limitations of policy-driven TVET reforms and to foreground the importance of pedagogical transformation. It examined how critical, humanising pedagogies – drawing on Paulo Freire’s problem-posing approach – could bridge the gap between macro-level policy and micro-level teaching and learning experiences.

Methods: The article employed a critical interpretive approach, informed by Paulo Freire’s pedagogy and Stephanie Allais’s structural critique of qualifications frameworks. Empirical data were drawn from a participatory action research (PAR) study involving 15 TVET graduates, whose post-study experiences illuminated the interplay between policy, pedagogy and career development.

Results: Findings revealed that policy reforms alone were insufficient to achieve transformative outcomes. Graduates described how rigid, standardised curricula and competency-based assessments limited their agency and failed to prepare them for meaningful, adaptable and socially relevant careers. The data highlighted the need for dialogical, inclusive pedagogical practices that respond to students’ lived realities.

Conclusion: Reimagining TVET requires more than structural reform – it demands pedagogical transformation rooted in student voice, critical engagement and social justice. Without this shift, TVET risks reinforcing existing inequalities rather than empowering students to access decent work and live dignified lives.

Contribution: This article contributes to vocational education scholarship by offering a Freirean critique of South African TVET policy and pedagogy. It highlights the significance of linking structural reform to pedagogical change and argues for student-centred, participatory approaches that foster critical consciousness and career agency.

Keywords: Freirean pedagogy; Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET); Participatory Action Research (PAR); student agency; South Africa.

Introduction

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in South Africa has been positioned as a strategic instrument for economic growth, youth employment and skills development, often underpinned by a human capital approach that links education to labour market needs (Allais, 2012, 2019; Ngcwangu, 2014, 2015). While this policy orientation has yielded important debates around qualifications frameworks, skills shortages and employability, it frequently neglects the broader human development dimensions of vocational education – particularly its potential to promote career empowerment, critical agency and social inclusion.

Emerging critiques of South Africa’s TVET landscape, such as those advanced by Allais (2019) and Allais and Wedekind (2020), offer valuable macro-level analyses of policy misalignments, employer disengagement and structural inefficiencies. However, these analyses tend to overlook the pedagogical and epistemological dimensions of vocational learning – the very processes through which students might develop not only occupational competencies but also the capacity for critical thinking, career adaptability and socio-political awareness. This article argues that such omissions weaken the transformative potential of TVET, especially in contexts of persistent inequality and youth marginalisation.

Drawing on Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, this article reimagines TVET not simply as a site for skills training but as a space for nurturing students’ voices, agency and participation in shaping their futures. It critiques the prevailing ‘banking’ model of education within TVET, in which students are treated as passive recipients of expert knowledge, and instead advances a problem-posing pedagogy grounded in dialogue, reflexivity and praxis (Freire, 1970; Freire & Shor, 1987). Such an approach aligns with the African Journal of Career Development’s commitment to promoting sustainable decent work through education that affirms human dignity and enhances career resilience.

Methodologically, the article is grounded in a critical theoretical framework, which is concerned with unveiling power dynamics and promoting social transformation through education (Cohen et al., 2011; Mertens, 2007). This framework aligns closely with Paulo Freire’s emancipatory pedagogy, which views education as a practice of freedom rather than a tool of compliance. The empirical insights are drawn from a participatory action research (PAR) study involving 15 South African TVET graduates (Majola, 2024). Participatory action research’s collaborative, dialogical and emancipatory principles resonate with Freire’s pedagogical philosophy (Balwanz & Hlatshwayo, 2016; Mertens, 2015), making it an appropriate methodology for exploring student agency and systemic reform in vocational education. These graduates, through critical reflection, offered rich narratives that illuminate the contradictions between policy aspirations and lived educational experiences – underscoring the need for pedagogical transformation grounded in students’ realities.

This argument builds on but also diverges from the structural critiques advanced by Allais (2019), in two key respects. Firstly, while policy analysis highlights critical systemic gaps, it often underplays the classroom-level dynamics where educational transformation must begin. Secondly, by failing to foreground student agency and participatory pedagogy, much of the current discourse risks reinforcing a technicist vision of TVET that sidelines the lived realities of students. In contrast, this article proposes a Freirean reorientation that links macro-level policy debates with micro-level pedagogical change – thereby offering a more holistic and human-centred vision of career empowerment within TVET.

The sections that follow examine key limitations in current TVET policies outline the theoretical underpinnings of a Freirean approach to career development and present empirical evidence illustrating the power of humanising pedagogy in vocational education. In doing so, the article calls for a reimagining of TVET that not only equips learners with occupational skills but also empowers them to navigate complexity, pursue meaningful work and contribute to a more just and inclusive society.

Research methods and design

Methodology

This article adopts a critical-interpretive methodology, combining policy critique, conceptual inquiry and reflective analysis, all anchored in Freirean pedagogy. This aligns with the transformative paradigm (Mertens, 2007), which prioritises equity, justice and the empowerment of marginalised voices. The study is rooted in critical traditions that interrogate neoliberal rationalities and expose the socio-political functions of TVET (Cohen et al., 2011), especially where policy and pedagogy intersect to shape the lived experiences of students and lecturers.

Empirically, the research draws from a PAR process involving 15 TVET graduates engaged in dialogical reflection and collaborative critique (Balwanz & Hlatshwayo, 2016; Majola, 2024). Participatory action research, as a methodology centred on collective meaning-making and transformation, resonates with Freire’s concepts of praxis and conscientisation (Freire, 1970; Freire & Shor, 1987). Data generated from learning cycle group (LCG) meetings offer grounded insights into the disconnect between policy promises and post-graduation realities, allowing participants to articulate their disillusionment, aspirations and critical agency.

Theoretical framing: Critical theoretical and policy analysis

This article draws on Paulo Freire’s radical pedagogical theory (1970, 1974) to interrogate the ideological foundations of South African TVET policy. Freire’s critique of the banking model challenges educational systems that treat students as passive recipients of knowledge. In contrast, he advocates for dialogical, praxis-based education – a continual cycle of reflection and action that enables transformation (Freire & Shor, 1987). At the core of this is conscientisation, the development of critical consciousness through which learners come to understand and challenge structures of oppression.

In parallel, the article employs a critical policy lens, drawing on Allais’s (2012, 2019, 2025) structural critique of South Africa’s qualifications frameworks. Allais exposes the technocratic and economistic logics embedded in these frameworks, which reduce education to its instrumental value for labour market alignment. She highlights how qualifications frameworks have evolved into bureaucratic instruments that marginalise teaching and learning by fetishising modular, decontextualised outcomes.

However, Allais’s analysis primarily remains at the macro-structural level. This article extends her critique into the pedagogical realm, arguing that policies such as the National Certificate (Vocational) [NC(V)] prioritise standardisation and employer alignment while suppressing critical thinking, interdisciplinarity and learner agency. Here, Freire’s theory enriches the critique by illuminating how power operates within the classroom, not just through policy but in pedagogical relationships and epistemic hierarchies.

To deepen this analysis, the article incorporates the capabilities approach (Nussbaum, 2011; Powell & McGrath, 2019; Sen, 1999), which reorients education from employability towards human flourishing, freedom and agency. While Freire stresses collective critical action, the capabilities approach insists on expanding learners’ substantive freedoms to pursue lives they value. Both frameworks share a normative commitment to human dignity and social justice. By synthesising these perspectives, the article argues for a reimagined TVET that moves beyond technical fixes and economic reductionism. It proposes a dual orientation – structural and pedagogical – that not only confronts systemic inequality but also transforms the classroom into a space for agency, voice and critical engagement. In doing so, it offers a holistic understanding of empowerment that is both materially and epistemically grounded.

Ethical considerations

Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the Nelson Mandela University Research Ethics Committee (No. H21-EDU-PGE-021).

Results

Reclaiming the purpose of Technical and Vocational Education and Training through student voice

This section presents empirical insights drawn from a PAR study involving 15 TVET graduates in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Data were generated through LCG meetings, a Freirean-inspired dialogical space where participants critically reflected on their educational experiences, social conditions and visions for change. The PAR approach ensured that participants were not merely research subjects, but co-researchers and co-theorists, engaging in collective meaning-making and inquiry. Sessions were transcribed, collaboratively reviewed and thematically analysed to identify recurring patterns, contradictions and emergent possibilities.

The findings are organised under four interrelated empirical themes that emerged inductively from participant narratives: (1) disillusionment and institutional betrayal, (2) the weight of structural marginalisation, (3) emergent praxis and reimagining TVET, and (4) pedagogical incompetence and the absence of dialogical teaching. These themes reflect both the depth of participants’ critique of current TVET systems and their capacity to theorise alternative futures.

Theme 1: Disillusionment and institutional betrayal

Participants expressed profound disappointment in how the TVET system, particularly the NC(V), failed to deliver on the promises of employment, further study or socio-economic mobility. This sense of institutional betrayal was a dominant thread throughout the data:

‘I thought my certificate would change my life, but I am still struggling. I try to stay positive, but I feel lost. What was the point of all that studying?’ (Participant, ZWS, 07 October 2021)

‘I didn’t enrol in college to sit at home … What for? Only to struggle like this?’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

‘Yes, I might be hungry coming to school … but we had to come to college because we want to change our lives and that of our families.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

These reflections echo Freire’s (1970) critique of the banking model of education, where learners are treated as passive recipients of content without the consideration of their real-world aspirations and constraints. The NC(V), although designed to promote work-readiness, often left students with credentials that were not recognised by universities or employers (Majola et al., 2024). This contributed to feelings of despair, futility and alienation:

‘You find out the emails about the internships are only sent out to N6 graduates … with your Level 4, you cannot qualify.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

This deep sense of disenchantment illustrates how institutional systems, although presented as empowering, can perpetuate false promises – a form of symbolic violence, wherein the appearance of opportunity masks deep structural exclusions.

Theme 2: The weight of structural marginalisation

While some critiques targeted institutional policies, many participants located their struggles within broader structural inequalities, including poverty, spatial exclusion and economic instability:

‘We can talk about our problems, but then what? Will anything change? Is there going to be food on our tables when we go back home?’ (Participant, QRS, 10 October 2021)

Another participant further states:

‘Everyone here can tell you poverty is real in the township … but we have to stand up with hope that education can help us improve.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

These voices point to the contextual realities that TVET policy often ignores. The policy rhetoric of ‘access’, ‘skills pathways’ and ‘employability’ does not align with the lived conditions of most graduates. As Ngcwangu (2019) argues, the employability discourse shifts responsibility to individuals while obscuring the systemic barriers that undermine real opportunity. Graduates feel qualified yet under-valued, caught in liminal spaces between educational achievement and economic exclusion.

The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and outcomes-based logic are also implicated in reproducing this marginalisation (Gamble, 2018). Participants noted the hollowing out of education into tick-box exercises, where critical engagement and holistic development are replaced by compliance:

‘For now, I don’t have hope … Education has not changed my life. It just added more problems.’ (Participant, PQM, 10 October 2021)

These data support Allais’s (2012, 2019, 2025) claim that the competency-based model has prioritised measurable outputs over ethical or developmental concerns. It reduces learners to units of labour potential, failing to cultivate the capabilities – such as voice, self-determination and relational support – that are central to humanising pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Powell & McGrath, 2019).

Theme 3: Emergent praxis and reimagining Technical and Vocational Education and Training

Despite the challenges, participants also demonstrated critical awareness, solidarity and agency – hallmarks of Freirean praxis. Through dialogical engagement in LCGs, many moved from expressing despair to envisioning collective strategies for change:

‘We as TVET students need to look out for one another … it’s good to have someone in your corner whom you can go through things with together.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

‘Algoa TVET College is not helping us get internships as they promised. Our efforts as a group will go a long way.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

‘A WhatsApp group where we can have discussions, group calls – something like that … is a brilliant idea.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

These excerpts show how participants were not passive victims but were actively theorising their conditions and organising to change them. The formation of the TVET Student Movement Group was a concrete act of collective praxis, embodying Freire’s idea that education must link reflection with action. Their suggestions for peer-led workshops, mentorship and digital collaboration are examples of grassroots pedagogical innovation:

‘Workshops can help a great deal, whereby we can teach and learn from each other – how to answer questions in an interview …’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

Participants also expressed long-term political aspirations, linking their individual struggles to broader community upliftment:

‘I don’t want to settle for being someone’s slave my whole life … I want to change things – for me, my family, and our black community.’ (Participant, BGT, 02 October 2021)

These voices align with Freire’s (1970) notion of conscientisation – the awakening of critical consciousness. As students recognised the systemic nature of their exclusion, they began imagining education not as adaptation but as transformation. This challenges dominant policy discourses that define vocational education purely through the lens of employability:

‘My goals didn’t change, but I’m somewhat stuck … employers are reluctant to hire us TVET graduates. I am very much frustrated.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

Far from anecdotal, these reflections represent epistemic insights – grounded, situated critiques that reveal how students theorise and resist the contradictions of TVET. They signal a shift towards pedagogical humanisation, where students are recognised as subjects of history, not objects of policy.

Theme 4: Pedagogical incompetence and the absence of dialogical teaching

A fourth theme that emerged from the study concerns the pedagogical shortcomings and lack of dialogical teaching in TVET colleges, which significantly undermines students’ ability to engage critically with their education (Freire & Horton, 1990; Freire & Shor, 1987). Participants expressed deep frustration with both the absence of reliable instruction and the dominance of rote-based, exam-oriented teaching methods that left little room for reflection, inquiry or dialogue – central tenets of Freirean pedagogy. As one participant reflected:

‘We were constantly under pressure to prepare for exams and meet assignment deadlines … there was no space for reflection or critical thinking.’ (Participant, GTR, 16 October 2021).

The curriculum structure of the NC(V), which includes up to seven subjects per term, compounded this problem:

‘With NC(V), we were pressed for time – tests, assignments, and exams. We always had something to submit … Doing seven subjects is very hectic, and you need to study all these subjects, or you will fail.’ (Participant, QRS, 16 October 2021).

Students were not only pressured by an overloaded curriculum but also disillusioned by inconsistent attendance and minimal engagement from lecturers:

‘We would waste our bus fare to go to school, and the lecturers do not come … we were supposed to attend five or six classes a day, but maybe got two.’ (Participant, NYP, 16 October 2021)

Another added:

‘You enrol in college with determination … but when the lecturers stop showing up, your passion also fades. Some students just give up.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

This lack of instructional reliability and commitment erodes trust in the educational process and reinforces Freire’s (1970) critique of the banking model – where education becomes a transaction devoid of relational or emancipatory value:

‘I just focused on passing exams, trusting the lecturers to teach what was needed for me to graduate and get a job.’ (Participant, XYT, 16 October 2021)

‘Truth be told, what made us come from the townships is getting employment after college more than anything else, trusting the knowledge from the teachers makes it possible for one to pass without any delays, to enable you to have a qualification to get into employment.’ (Participant, XYT, 16 October 2021)

These voices reveal that the urgency of economic need narrows students’ educational focus to credential attainment, often at the expense of critical engagement or social awareness. Yet this is exacerbated – not mitigated – by instructional practices that fail to invite student participation or foster dialogical inquiry.

Dialogical teaching practices, while central to Freirean pedagogy, are difficult to implement in the current institutional culture of TVET colleges. Rigid curricula, bureaucratic accountability pressures and overloaded class schedules prevent lecturers from creating space for dialogue or reflection. Although alternative models like project-based or challenge-based learning exist in theory, many institutions still rely on didactic instruction, rote memorisation and exam-focused content delivery (Vimbelo & Bayaga, 2023, 2024).

Participants’ testimonies point to the consequences of this pedagogical rigidity and lack of institutional responsiveness:

‘Many of us were committed to completing our studies, but that commitment became meaningless when lecturers didn’t come to class regularly or didn’t teach well.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

‘We reported lecturer absenteeism to the campus manager, but nothing changed. Instead, lecturers became hostile.’ (LCG meeting, B01, 16 October 2021)

These structural and pedagogical failures collectively undermine the potential for education as a humanising, empowering practice. Instead of fostering critical thinking, curiosity or social transformation, the system too often reinforces student disengagement, mistrust and resignation.

Together, these four themes provide a nuanced and grounded critique of TVET’s structural, pedagogical and policy failures. But they also offer a vision for reclaiming vocational education as a transformative and dialogical practice, where students’ experiences are the starting point for reimagining more inclusive futures. The discussion section builds on this foundation to propose concrete strategies for integrating Freirean principles into institutional policy and practice.

Discussion

Bridging the macro and micro – Linking policy and pedagogy in Technical and Vocational Education and Training

This discussion draws together the conceptual, policy and empirical threads of the study to explore how the structural imperatives of South African TVET interact – often problematically – with the everyday pedagogical experiences of students. Building on the four key themes identified in the findings – disillusionment and institutional betrayal, the weight of structural marginalisation, emergent praxis and reimagining TVET and pedagogical incompetence and the absence of dialogical teaching – this section argues that sustainable TVET reform requires more than structural policy change. It demands a transformation of the pedagogical practices and power relations that shape the learning encounter.

The limits of structural reform without pedagogical change

The first theme – disillusionment and institutional betrayal – reveals the emotional and intellectual impact of policy failure on students. Participants described how the NC(V), although policy-framed as a pathway to opportunity, produced feelings of abandonment and futility. These accounts underscore that macro-level reforms, such as qualifications frameworks and curriculum alignment, do not automatically translate into meaningful change for learners. This disconnect aligns with Powell (2021) and Vally and Motala (2014), who caution that policy interventions, if not grounded in pedagogical transformation, remain symbolic and ineffective.

Lecturers, too, experienced disempowerment as they struggled to implement a rigid, technicist curriculum that left little space for contextual adaptation (Vimbelo & Bayaga, 2024). This echoes Allais’s (2025) critique that policy-driven reform often imposes top-down mandates without investing in the pedagogical capacity of those responsible for implementation. Without room for critical reflection or classroom-level innovation, both students and educators become subjects of a system that stifles rather than liberates. These findings affirm the argument by Allais and Shalem (2018) that narrow competency-based approaches flatten the complexities of teaching, reduce students to assessable outputs and ultimately deprofessionalise lecturers.

Structural marginalisation as a pedagogical challenge

The second theme – the weight of structural marginalisation – demonstrates how socio-economic inequality invades the classroom. Participants’ reflections reveal that poverty, spatial inequality and policy volatility undermine TVET’s capacity to deliver on its emancipatory promise. These conditions are not simply external but are embedded in the everyday context in which teaching and learning unfold. Students frequently arrive at college facing hunger, long commutes and digital exclusion – realities that remain invisible in curriculum policy and implementation.

Freire (1970) insisted that education must begin with learners’ lived realities. However, as Ngcwangu (2019) argues, the dominant employability discourse displaces these realities in favour of individualised responsibility, leaving broader structural forces unexamined. Participants’ narratives exposed how the NC(V) qualification, framed as a route to opportunity, in practice excludes students from both employment and university access. These testimonies validate critiques by Allais (2019) and Powell and McGrath (2019), who warn that TVET frameworks driven by labour market logic can reinforce rather than dismantle inequality.

These findings also resonate with Vally and Motala (2022), who maintain that educational reform devoid of attention to socio-economic contexts risks replicating injustices. From a Freirean perspective, this is a pedagogical failure – it denies students the opportunity to critically examine and challenge their circumstances, and it restricts the curriculum to technical content devoid of transformative potential.

Praxis and the emergence of critical agency

The third theme – emergent praxis and reimagining TVET – offers compelling evidence of student agency and hope. In contrast to the narrative of passive TVET graduates, participants enacted Freire’s (1970) concept of praxis: critical reflection linked to action. Through the formation of peer support structures, proposals for student-led workshops and the articulation of collective demands, learners demonstrated their capacity to theorise and challenge institutional neglect.

Students did not merely recount grievances; they envisioned alternatives. Their proposals for digital collaboration platforms, community engagement and curriculum reform illustrate their role as knowledge producers. This aligns with the capabilities approach advanced by Powell and McGrath (2019), which frames education as expanding learners’ real freedoms and capabilities – not merely as preparation for predefined roles.

These voices represent more than personal frustrations – they constitute counter-narratives to dominant policy discourses. As Soudien (2023) argues, recognising students as epistemic agents is foundational to reimagining socially just education. In this light, the student narratives presented here function as theorised insights, grounded in lived experience and oriented towards structural transformation.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training lecturers as agents of change

The data also underscore the pivotal role of lecturers in either facilitating or hindering transformative pedagogy. Theme four, in particular, highlights how pedagogical incompetence, absenteeism and an overburdened curriculum obstruct students’ ability to meaningfully engage with their learning. Students spoke of lecturers who frequently failed to attend classes, relied on rote delivery methods and neglected opportunities for critical dialogue. These failings not only eroded student trust but also undermined the educational process itself, illustrating the dangers of a system overly focused on compliance and assessment.

This reinforces Porres’ (2022) and Vimbelo and Bayaga’s (2023, 2024) argument that policy reforms must be accompanied by sustained investment in lecturer development – not only in technical competencies but also in the cultivation of dialogical, student-centred pedagogical approaches. The absence of such practices limits the possibility of a humanising educational experience, particularly when lecturers are disempowered by rigid, centrally imposed curricula.

Professional development must therefore go beyond administrative training and engage deeply with the broader goals of education – social justice, cultural responsiveness and the empowerment of both educators and learners. As Vally and Motala (2022) assert, educators should be seen not merely as implementers but as co-creators of curriculum and institutional culture. Their professional agency must be restored if TVET is to become a space of liberation rather than marginalisation.

Reframing policy and pedagogy as interconnected dimensions

Reclaiming TVET as a transformative space requires a fundamental shift in how we conceptualise the relationship between policy and pedagogy. Policy must cease to function as a prescriptive apparatus and instead become an enabling framework that supports flexibility, responsiveness and humanisation in teaching and learning. This includes legitimising student and lecturer voice in curriculum design, adopting formative and reflective assessments and creating institutional spaces for participatory decision-making.

The testimonies from students and lecturers in this study reveal the contours of such a vision. They point to a vocational education system that prioritises dialogue over delivery, relationality over regulation and collective empowerment over individualised adaptation. These principles echo Freire’s (1970) insistence that education must be a practice of freedom – one that equips learners not just to survive but also to critically engage and transform their world.

In this spirit, the study affirms that macro-level policy reform must be inseparable from micro-level pedagogical change. As McGrath et al. (2020) and the VET Africa 4.0 Collective (2023) contend, the future of vocational education depends on its ability to nurture socially conscious, critically engaged citizens. By anchoring TVET in the lived experiences and aspirations of students and empowering educators as facilitators of change, we can begin to move beyond technocratic reform towards a genuinely emancipatory model of vocational learning.

Conclusion

This article has argued that meaningful transformation in TVET requires more than structural adjustment – it demands pedagogical reinvention rooted in the lived realities of students. While South Africa’s policy frameworks often frame vocational education as a technical response to labour market challenges, this approach neglects the human, ethical and political dimensions of education.

Building on Allais’s structural critique and extending it through the lens of Freirean pedagogy, the article has offered a conceptual and empirical bridge between macro-level reform and micro-level classroom practice. The study foregrounds student voices not as anecdotal evidence but as epistemic contributions that illuminate what education should become. Furthermore, student voices suggest that lecturers emerge not as mere implementers of rigid curricula but as potential agents of critical transformation – provided they are given the professional and policy space to act.

At the heart of this reimagining is a call for TVET that does not treat students as workers-in-training, but as human beings capable of shaping their futures. This means developing not only technical skills but also the capabilities to aspire, critique, collaborate and transform. It means rejecting the banking model in favour of dialogue, praxis and solidarity. And it means shifting from compliance-driven reform to participatory and humanising educational practices.

This vision is both pedagogical and political. It calls on policy-makers to go beyond efficiency metrics and to invest in inclusive, critical and context-sensitive TVET systems. It challenges institutions to centre student and community knowledge and to create spaces where education becomes a practice of freedom.

Future research must deepen this work by expanding participatory engagements across more institutions and geographies. But even now, one thing is clear: TVET can only empower if it listens to, learns from and is transformed by those it claims to serve.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the contributions made by the research participants during the data generation.

The author declares that no financial or personal relationships inappropriately influenced the writing of this article.

E.M. is the sole author of this research article.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

The data supporting this study were generated through Learning Circle Group (LCG) meetings and life narrative interviews conducted and are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author, E.M. No external datasets were used. Because of the sensitive and personal nature of the data collected, they are not publicly available to protect participant confidentiality.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency, or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings, and content.

References