Reconceptualising Industry Responsiveness in TVET: How Sequencing Shapes the Occupational–Regulatory Interface in NQF-Governed Systems

Abstract

National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) are widely used to classify qualifications through level descriptors, credit systems and learning outcomes. However, TVET systems continue to face persistent difficulties in aligning formal qualifications with the knowledge, practices and competence structures of occupational fields. This conceptual paper examines the policy assumption that NQF-based qualification design inherently improves industry responsiveness. It argues that responsiveness should be understood as an epistemic and governance outcome rather than as a procedural result of consultation, occupational standards or compliance documentation. Using a structured conceptual synthesis, the paper integrates Bernstein’s theory of recontextualisation, institutional logics theory and socio-epistemic accounts of vocational knowledge. The analysis focuses on the meso-level qualification development process in NQF-governed TVET systems, where occupational standards are translated into formal qualification architecture and authorised through regulatory instruments. The paper proposes the Occupational–Regulatory Recontextualisation Framework (ORRF), which conceptualises responsiveness along a continuum between regulatory-dominant sequencing and occupationally grounded sequencing. The framework distinguishes symbolic responsiveness, where occupational alignment is visible procedurally but shaped primarily by regulatory categories, from substantive responsiveness, where occupational authenticity is preserved through the prior structuring of knowledge and practice. Five theoretical propositions are advanced to explain how sequencing, epistemic coherence and knowledge governance shape different responsiveness outcomes. The paper concludes that NQFs do not determine responsiveness by design alone. Instead, responsiveness depends on whether occupational analysis is allowed to structure qualification architecture before regulatory classification occurs. The ORRF provides a conceptual basis for future comparative and case-based research on qualification development in NQF-governed TVET systems and for re-examining how regulatory and occupational authorities interact.