Educator agency and collaborative learning for sustainability in southern African TVET: A communities of practice perspective

Abstract

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) has become important in efforts to advance sustainable development, but little attention has been given to how educators translate education for sustainable development (ESD) into vocational pedagogy. This study examines how educator-led Change Projects enacted ESD in selected TVET settings in southern Africa. A qualitative secondary document analysis was undertaken of seven Change Projects from Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe documented in the Sustainability starts with teachers (SST) evaluation report. The projects addressed entrepreneurship, community-service learning, engineering redesign, repair cafés, information and communications technology-supported teaching, industrial attachment through beekeeping, and water management engineering. Cross-case analysis identified three pedagogical orientations: participatory and community-engaged learning, curriculum innovation for sustainability, and experiential and practice-based learning. Interpreted through Wenger’s Communities of Practice (CoP) framework, these orientations demonstrate how collaborative participation, negotiated educational purpose and shared pedagogical resources shaped educators’ responses to sustainability. The study argues that educator agency is an interpretive social practice through which sustainability acquires vocational meaning in particular institutional contexts.