Competency Gaps in Cybersecurity Teaching: Digital Skills, Pedagogy, and Governance

Abstract

Cybersecurity education increasingly occurs in digitally mediated environments that require educators to integrate technical expertise with effective pedagogy and accountable governance. Yet many programs still treat educator readiness as synonymous with subject matter knowledge, leaving critical capability gaps that affect learning quality, equity, and institutional risk. This article identifies and systematizes competency gaps in cybersecurity teaching across three interdependent domains: digital skills, pedagogy, and governance. A structured narrative review and framework mapping approach was applied. Key workforce and curriculum references were used as anchors, including the NIST NICE Framework, ENISA’s European Cybersecurity Skills Framework, and the Cybersecurity Curricula 2017 guidelines, complemented by educator digital competence frameworks and cybersecurity risk governance guidance. The analysis indicates three recurring gap patterns. First, technical teaching often underemphasizes platform, cloud, and AI enabled security contexts and the transferable skills emphasized by workforce evidence. Second, pedagogical gaps appear in assessment design for authentic performance, inclusive learning design, and safe handling of sensitive or exploit oriented content. Third, governance gaps emerge in procurement literacy, data governance, incident readiness for learning platforms, and alignment of teaching practice with institutional cybersecurity risk management. Competence in cybersecurity teaching is best treated as a role-based capability that integrates digital practice, pedagogy, and governance rather than as isolated technical mastery. Future studies should validate measurable educator competency indicators, test the effects of targeted professional development on learner outcomes, and develop audit-ready governance routines for AI enabled cybersecurity instruction.