Reclaiming TVET as a Humanising Space: Reflective Insights from South Africa’s First Advanced Diploma in Technical and Vocational Teaching

Abstract

Despite its critical role in addressing youth unemployment, South Africa’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector is hampered by structural inequities, social stigma, and a banking model of instruction. While policy reforms target technical competencies, a significant gap remains in lecturers’ professional development, which frequently neglects the relational, reflective, and pedagogical practices necessary for transformative practice in Global South contexts. This research investigates how a pedagogical intervention can be collaboratively designed and implemented within an Advanced Diploma in TVET to support lecturer professional development and the cultivation of transformative agency. The study employs a design-based research (DBR) approach, positioning the researchers as active participants in iterative cycles of analysis, design, implementation, and reflection. Data were generated through collaborative self-reflection, including learning diaries, narrative free writing, and paired dialogues, and were analysed using thematic analysis to track pedagogical and ontological shifts over time. Results indicate that humanising TVET practice requires a relational praxis grounded in dialogical engagement and mutual vulnerability, which disrupts traditional classroom hierarchies. Furthermore, findings reveal that a contact-synced live blended architecture can bridge geographical divides while maintaining human-centredness. The intervention fostered critical consciousness, enabling lecturers to transition from passive policy implementers to African activists who localise knowledge and promote entrepreneurial agency. This study makes a methodological contribution to the field by positioning DBR as a transformative design logic uniquely suited for decolonial, contextually grounded transformation in the Global South.