Digital Pedagogy in the Competency-Based Education Transition Era: Bridging Technological Idealism and Institutional Realities in Kenyan Universities

Abstract

Kenya’s Competency-Based Education (CBE) framework mandates digital pedagogy as its primary delivery mechanism, yet systematic evidence reveals a persistent gap between that technological idealism and the institutional realities constraining delivery in public universities. No prior systematic review has simultaneously mapped the antecedents, mediators, and moderators of this implementation quality gap, or synthesised governance-grounded strategies for closing it. This qualitative systematic literature review, conducted following PRISMA 2020 guidelines and organised around an antecedents–mediators–moderators (AMM) governance schema, addressed that gap directly. Searches across Google Scholar, ERIC, AJOL, and JSTOR identified 180 sources; 39 met all inclusion criteria after two-stage screening. The scale of the problem was substantial: only 17.1% of public university campus units maintained consistently adequate digital infrastructure; lecturer TPACK integration averaged 2.59 out of 5; and internet access diverged by 29 percentage points between urban and rural areas. Governance analysis revealed three structural contradictions—funding-mandate misalignment, governance-agility tension, and donor-sovereignty displacement—that compounded these deficits. Kenya’s digital CBE quality gap is primarily a governance failure interacting with infrastructure and pedagogical constraints, rather than a problem resolvable through technology acquisition or curriculum reform alone. Four evidence-based strategies are proposed: sequenced infrastructure investment, institutionally sustained TPACK development, mobile-first pedagogical design, and intra-institutional governance reform.