Hearing and Listening to the Voices from Below: TVET Students’ Praxis in a Freirean Context

Abstract

This article revisits the lived experiences of South African Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students through a Freirean lens, foregrounding the praxis of listening as a transformative act of conscientisation. Drawing on participatory action research (PAR) with National Certificate (Vocational) [NC(V)] graduates, the study explores how students reflect on and act against systemic inequities within their learning environments and labour market transitions. Moving beyond the idealism often associated with Freirean applications, the paper offers grounded evidence of how students mobilise dialogical spaces, peer learning networks, and collective activism to contest exclusionary pedagogies and institutional neglect. It distinguishes between hearing - a tokenistic recognition of students’ voices - and listening, which entails dialogical engagement that generates agency and systemic critique. Positioned within South Africa’s evolving TVET landscape, including post-Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) reforms and shifting policy frameworks, the study argues that genuine listening can reframe employability as a humanising and emancipatory process rather than a narrow economic imperative. By integrating students’ praxis with recent critical debates on vocational justice and transformation, the paper contributes to reimagining TVET as a site of collective empowerment and social change. The findings advance a Freirean pedagogy of transformation rooted in listening, action, and liberation.