From Training to Competence: A Constraint-Based Theory of Competence Emergence

Vocational education and training (TVET) systems worldwide continue to expand, yet consistently fail to produce individuals capable of independent action under real work conditions. This paper argues that this persistent outcome gap is not the result of insufficient resources, curricula, or pedagogical refinement, but of a structural misinterpretation of how competence emerges. Building on empirical observations across multiple implementation contexts, the paper introduces the Competence Emergence Framework (CEF). It conceptualizes competence not as an additive result of knowledge and skill acquisition, but as an emergent state arising from the alignment of intentionality, knowledge, and action under conditions of responsibility. Central to this process is self-reliance, defined as a threshold condition that transforms participation into independent performance. The framework is complemented by a constraint-based perspective derived from the minimum principle, which interprets system performance as limited by its weakest element rather than determined by aggregated inputs. Together, these perspectives reframe vocational education as a system design problem rather than a pedagogical optimization challenge. The contribution of this paper is the formalization of competence as an emergent and constraint-based phenomenon. This manuscript is presented as a conceptual preprint and does not represent a final journal publication.