Using the language of the capability approach The capability approach provides a useful language with which to articulate
Using the language of the capability approach The capability approach provides a useful language with which to articulate
both the learning processes and social value of education. The distinction between capabilities and functionings is very useful in education. The concept of capability stresses the real freedoms a learner has to make informed choices in order to achieve a life she has reason to value. Capabilities are the real opportunities and options learners have to strive for certain educational achievements. For example, being literate and numerate or well-regarded as an educated person, being knowledgeable about history, being able to take part in
a discussion with other learners, and being respected by teachers and peers in school are important achievements that the capability approach stresses. But evaluating only functionings or outcomes can give too little information on how well people are doing. Some cases may appear to have achieved the same functionings but, behind these equal outcomes, very different stories may in fact be hidden.
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Let us take the example of two 13-year old girls in Kenya. They have both participated in an international study of learning achievements and have both failed mathematics. One attended a well-equipped school in Nairobi with qualified and motivated teachers offering adequate learning support and a safe learning environment. Despite this, she failed. A major reason for her failing the maths exam was her decision to spend less time on studying and more with friends in the drama club and other leisure activities. The other girl attended a school in Wajir, one of the poorest districts, and showed great interest in mathematics and school work generally. Despite this, she failed her exam simply because of the lack of a proper mathematics teacher at her school. The subject was taught by an English specialist. Private lessons after school were available, but her parents could not afford this for all their children. So they decided to give priority to their son and required their daughter to perform housework and childcare. She therefore had little time to prepare for her exams.
This case illustrates how evaluating capabilities or functionings will mean that one will tend to see situations differently. If one looks only at functionings – performance in examinations – one sees equal (if regrettable) outcomes. But while the functionings of the students are the same, their capabilities are different. The capability approach requires that we do not simply evaluate the functionings – the actual achievements – but the real freedom or opportunities each student has to choose and achieve what she values. Our evaluation of equality must therefore take account of freedom in opportunities as much as in observed choices. Capabilities to undertake valued and valuable activities should thus constitute an indispensable and central aspect of the relevant basis for evaluation.
Using the capability approach as a method to evaluate educational advan- tage, and equally to identify disadvantage, marginalization and exclusion, entails another perspective on public policy in education. It requires that educa- tional policy pay attention to the transition from capabilities to functionings, and to the conversion factors that affect them (see Chapter 2). From the perspective of the human development and capability approach, educational policy focuses on the freedoms individuals and social groups have to achieve valued functionings (the capability set) and the ways in which conversion works to limit or expand these capabilities. Conversion might work both internally (with regard to how individuals learn or understand the value of education) and externally (with a bearing on the quality of school provision, the level of teacher knowledge and capacity to put this into practice, forms of discrimination, such as education privileges some learners might have, and so on).
Current evaluations of education systems only look at inputs (such as expenditure and level of teacher qualification) and outputs (such as what grades students get or whether they pass tests in particular skills). There is no current standardized means of evaluating education in terms of capabilities, although capability-informed methods of evaluating education are currently being developed (see below).
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Another approach to evaluating education is based on what people say they want from their schooling – this approach is reminiscent of the ‘revealed preference approach’ detailed in Chapter 2. If children from low-income groups receive only primary education, and children from high-earning families attend primary and secondary school, both groups may say they are satisfied, because this is what each has come to expect. So, when their educational opportunities are assessed from the viewpoint of what people want, there is no problem as both groups are apparently equally content and satisfied. Yet there is something disconcerting about this type of conclusion, which ultimately suggests the problem of ‘adaptive preference’. A focus on capabilities requires us not only to evaluate our satisfaction with individual learning outcomes, but to question the range of real educational choices that have been available to people: whether they have the genuine capability to achieve a valued educational functioning. We would need to ask whether people’s educational aspirations had become adapted to their respective circumstances, and whether the low-income group had a range of valued learning opportunities to choose from, out of which they then selected just minimal primary education. The capability approach therefore invites a range of more searching questions about equality that go well beyond a narrow focus on desire satisfaction. 3
Thinking in terms of capabilities raises a wider range of issues than simply looking at the amount of resources or commodities people have. Because of interpersonal diversity, people need a different amount of resources in order to transform them into the functioning ‘being educated’ – thus a dyslexic child might require more inputs in order to be able to read and write, for example. One might argue that the education provided by one type of school may not
be suitable or accessible for all children because some children necessarily have different needs. Thus, for example, five years of basic schooling in a class with
a 40:1 pupil/teacher ratio and with lessons delivered in the majority language of a region might suit quick and confident learners, who speak the majority language at home, always sit in the front of the class and have high levels of concentration because of their good nutrition (see Chapter 10). The same level of resources may be woefully inadequate for children who are shy, hungry, have poor concentration skills, always sit at the back of the class and only speak a minority language. The capability approach therefore alerts us to the fact that we cannot simply evaluate resources and inputs (such as teachers or years of schooling) and that we must look at whether learners are able to actually convert resources into capabilities, and thereafter into functionings.
Another example of the importance of conversion factors relates to how formal schooling can provide literacy – the capability to read and write – which can then be used to convert a resource, such as a newspaper, into a source of information for an individual. If we only evaluate inputs, each child in the class appears to have access to equal amounts of resources. If we evaluate the link between resources and capabilities, we would need to take into account critical issues like the availability of newspapers, the amount of free time for children
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to read, the acceptability of even reading a newspaper for some types of children (particularly girls and those living in poverty) in certain societies, and the actual accuracy of investigative methods being employed. There could be certain social processes that form inequalities and limitations on capabilities or, alternately, sometimes close inequality gaps and promote capabilities – both types of which standard evaluation methodologies might tend to overlook. Box 9.6 describes an example from non-formal education in Uganda, which demonstrates how standard education evaluations – such as attendance in schools – could miss out on important information since children might be receiving their education through non-formal networks outside the school system.