The Capabilities Approach as a Lifelong Competency Assessment
Framework
Merija Jirgensons
Distance Study Education Centre (DESC), Riga Technical University, Riga, Latvia
Keywords: Capabilities Approach, Capabilities Framework, Competencies, Lifelong Learning, Amartya Sen.
Abstract: The Capabilities Approach is an interdisciplinary tool that is applicable in a number of settings. The approach
was developed by economist and philosopher Amartya Sen in his work with quality of life issues in India that
led to the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI). Sen’s contribution is in the assessment of quality
of life issues. For Sen, human well-being is as important a factor as traditional economic concepts such as
GDP and cost-benefit analysis. Moreover, the Capabilities Approach moves beyond human capital theory that
views human labor, education, and other activities as tandem to the GNP and instead, provides a human
centered analytical concept. The framework helps planners to orientate projects, to measure the satisfaction
of target groups, and promote accessibility and egalitarian resource distribution. The effectiveness of the
capabilities approach is analyzed in terms of functionings. The dynamic interdisciplinary character of the
approach has allowed to be applied as an analytical tool to a number of disciplines. The author argues that the
capabilities approach is also applicable to education in a lifelong competency-based learning context that
offers a feasible alternative pathway to adult learners by addressing issues of quality, personal aspirations and
satisfactions that make education and life worthwhile. Sen’s approach has been criticized for being
incomplete. Yet its contribution is undeniable. The Capabilities Approach highlights particular spaces for
evaluating individual opportunities and successes that are particularly applicable to a lifelong learning context.
1 INTRODUCTION: THE
CAPABILITIES APPROACH,
COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT
AND LIFELONG LEARNING
The Capabilities Approach or CA takes competency
based learning to the next higher level. It is a
theoretical framework developed by Amartya Sen to
analyze social and economic well-being and can be
applied to education and to the lifelong learning
process as a feasible alternative pathway available to
adult learners (Delors, 2013, pp. 326-327). It
addresses issues of quality—personal aspirations and
satisfactions that make education and life worthwhile.
While competency based learning addresses the
development of skills—the outer person—the
capabilities approach is concerned with the inner
person and personal satisfaction and autonomy. The
capabilities approach and competency based learning
can be viewed as comprising “two halves of the same
walnut”—to quote Harry Truman’s old adage—or a
holistic educational experience. Moreover, the
holistic framework addresses current trends in
lifelong learning as well as in education in general.
The benchmark study in this regard was the Delors
report The Treasure Within (1996) that argued for the
human dimensions of the educational experience.
Additionally, the framework can be used to outline
and analyze learning goals and outcomes including
issues of personal growth. The Capabilities Approach
argues for substantive freedom. This is not freedom
as an abstract theory—although it grapples with
issues such as justice and fairness--but the freedom of
daily life where people in their daily round of
activities may make real choices among a range of
options and construct lives that they regard as
valuable and meaningful. These are the capabilities
that Sen’s theory addresses, the ordinary ‘beings and
doings’ and the small victories people realized by
their various achievements (Sen, 2007, pp. 271, 274).
Yet Sen also recognizes that there are constraints that
may limit human experience; that people’s choices
may be limited by economics, politics, culture,
environment, and educational barriers. Therefore, the
framework may also identify constraints, assess them
501
Jirgensons M..
The Capabilities Approach as a Lifelong Competency Assessment Framework.
DOI: 10.5220/0005493205010509
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2015), pages 501-509
ISBN: 978-989-758-107-6
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
and remedy them where possible. Sen is not a radical
but he favors change and recognizes that a proper
diagnosis is the first step to change.
The capabilities approach is relevant to education
because it seeks to identify the capabilities that people
possess and create opportunities for their
development. Not only does education enhance the
quality of life, it also acts as a leaven for identifying
future choices and opportunities setting in motion a
transformative process. Education is so significant
because it operates on so many levels at once:
educational, professional, personal, and social and
enhances economic opportunities. Sen identifies
capabilities in sets as educational, personal,
professional that may be specifically listed for each
context. The capabilities framework is also dynamic
because it seeks to assess the interaction and
transformative potential of the capabilities in question
through the operation of conversion factors that are
personal, social and environmental. The result is the
achieved functioning. Ideally, the achieved
functioning, will act as a spur to prompt individuals
to reach out to new experiences and opportunities that
identify further capabilities that can then be converted
into more achieved functionings and by this process
create a dynamic growth pattern. (Sen, Justice, 235-
237). The capabilities are identified in functionings,
and they vary according to context. Capabilities are
the genuine opportunities and freedoms that people
realize in their functionings (Robeyns, 2006, 351). In
analyzing poverty in a developing country the
variable may be few and simple: nourishment and
shelter, avoidance of morbidity, longevity and similar
factors. What is being analyzed is the interpersonal
and antisocial relationship between functionings and
capabilities, i.e. what an individual may aspire to
within a set of circumstances and what are the
constraints. (Sen, 2007, p. 272). In a higher education
context, however, they would be more complex and
focused on knowledge, skills, cognitive development
and peer group interactions. Sen also recognizes that
there are constraints that may limit experiences that
are personal (abilities, educational levels,
motivation), social (prejudice against women,
bigotry, tradition), political (an authoritarian state),
economic (poverty); but it is also possible to assess
and measure these and address them where possible
(Sen, 2010, pp. 254-257).
The Capabilities Approach has received notice as
a leading framework for analyzing human well-being
(Leßmann and Bonvin, 2011, p. 85). It is an
emancipatory theory for human development
intended to give people freedom and options to act. It
is anti-utilitarian because it does not regard human
happiness as distributive (the greatest happiness for
the greatest number) but an individual experience and
the result of personal choice. Yet Sen remains
consequence sensitive; personal responsibility is an
important part of his philosophy (Sen, 2010, 220-
221). Sen views education as central for human
development. He advocates it for both men and
women and regards it as crucial for expanding
personal and social choice (Sen, 2010, p. 112).
Jacques Delors—chairman of the influential UN
report Learning: the Treasure Within (1996) —
viewed Sen’s Capability Approach as an important
pathway for achieving the goals of a holistic
education within a lifelong learning context (Delors,
2013, pp. 226-227). Yet even though education is an
important component of Sen’s Human Development
Index (HDI) on which CA is based, to date the
method has been little applied to education and less
to higher education although some promising studies
exist that show the potential of CA as a sophisticated
analytical tool that is people centered and
interdisciplinary. As an approach to eLearning, CA
is new but becoming appreciated by leading Open
Universities and Distance learning providers (Tait,
2013, pp. 3-5). How applicable as a framework is CA
to education especially in a lifelong learning context?
What does it add and what are its shortcomings? How
could it be meaningfully readapted? These are
questions this paper will explore and attempt to find
some answers.
2 DEFINING THE CAPABILITIES
APPROACH
The Capabilities Approach was pioneered in the field
of economics by Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel
Prize in economics in 1998. It originated with his
work in accessing quality of life issues in India. It is
not a theory but an analytical framework to measure
quality of life issues. As recently as the 1990s, the
World Bank applied the GDP as the measurement of
a nation’s well-being. But Sen and the Pakistani
economist Mahbub ul Haq with their work at the UN
understood that a nation’s development must also
measure quality of life issues, closing linking the
social and economic dynamic to human development
and educational levels and access. The result was that
in 1990 the UN created the Human Development
Programme (UNDP) and published the Human
Development Reports that included the statistical
report Human Development Index (HDI) that
measure human capabilities and achievements
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(UNDP 2014, Robeyns, 2006, 351). These reports
have been published continuously to the present.
Sen’s Capabilities Approach is derived from a
microeconomics framework to profile human
development. But it is a human centered analytical
concept that separates human development from
human capital theory that views human labor,
education, and other activities as tandem to the GNP
(Saito, 2003, pp. 8, 24; Walker, 2006, p. 21). Sen’s
framework puts the human being first and shows his
relationship to economic growth as a consequence of
human well-being. While economic growth remains
desirable, it is not the immediate goal. Sen’s theory is
intended to promote human freedom; when people
have the freedom to choose and undertake self-
directed activities, it is assumed that economics will
also be positively affected. One of the attractive
features of Sen’s theory is that it focuses on quality of
life issues and understands that human satisfaction,
achievements, security and the like must precede
economic development and not the other way around.
Its focus is life enrichment and as such it is
particularly relevant to education because education
includes both personal satisfaction and potential
economic productivity. One of the factors Sen’s
theory measures is a composite profile of education
attainment, but also understands their limits: i.e.,
constraints, barriers and needs. The framework helps
planners to orientate projects, to measure the
satisfaction of target groups, and promote
accessibility and egalitarian resource distribution.
The effectiveness of the capabilities approach is
analyzed in terms of functionings. Functionings are
qualitative attributes such as access to education,
health care or a clean environment that give life
satisfaction and enable individual choice. These are
identified as sets of assets that promote the good life
or result in constraints or even deprivations. For
example, nourishment is an important functioning
and an indicator of human well-being or its
contrary—hunger or famine—is a deprivation. Sen
claims that capabilities and functionings are to be
identified as situation specific; they are related to
context (Sen, Capabilities, 2007, p. 272). He has
consistently refused to present a list of capabilities
that would serve as a benchmark to gauge human
development that Melanie Walker has called the Core
Capabilities (Walker, 2010, p. 898). His framework is
dynamic; its essence is change. Its dynamism is
achieved by converting capabilities into functionings
that are transformative and form part of an ongoing
process of reaching out and converting more
capabilities into functionings. The framework
operates by asking the question that after a certain set
of capabilities have been achieved, what else can an
individual do to enrich his / her life? Change in Sen’s
framework operates multi-dimensionally on three
levels: personal, social and environmental; it is multi-
dimensional that is both personal and has wider social
and environmental ramifications (Sen, 2010, p. 248).
Martha Nussbaum, Sen’s sometime collaborator, has
also been his harshest critic in his failure to provide a
benchmark list of capabilities. Nussbaum has
identified ten capabilities that she claims represent the
threshold of human well-being (Nussbaum, 2000, p.
75). Among these she includes health, imagination
and self-expression, practical reason and critical
thinking, play and similar attributes (Nussbaum,
2000), 78-80. She views the list as a proposal, as the
basis for political negotiations for the achievement of
human rights. But Sen demurs from such lists, feeling
that they are inappropriate to a dynamic analysis
where cluster sets are always changing and new ones
are evolving. Another criticism that was aimed at both
Sen and Nussbaum is that the capabilities approach is
too individualistic. It is true that Sen is an advocate of
pluralism, individual autonomy and liberal
democracy. The focus of his works has been human
freedom. He feels that identifying people in terms of
traditional group identities, has given traditional
groups such as family, ethnic groups and religion
creeds too narrow a focus and as a result has missed
the dynamic of individual aspirations and choice
(Sen, 2010, 246-247). Sen is anti-parochial, he feel
that traditional groups have kept people down,
especially women. He is a cosmopolitan who favors
individual autonomy that he refers to as agency. Yet
Sen emphasizes the importance of participation,
especially in developing solutions to common
problems (Zheng and Stahl, 2011, p. 69). He is an
advocate for sociability and bonding by mutual
attraction, an Enlightenment idea and Adam Smith
figures prominently in his analysis. Sen’s ideas
reach-out beyond networking and include a broad
range of human associations such as friendship,
personal associations, and professional interests. Sen
has also been criticized that he does not ascribe to a
method to measure the various functionings —he is
quite low keyed in regards to measurement--for
evaluations he does recommend interviews and most
of all public discussions—he is interested that people
create forums to find solutions for common problems
(Sen, 2010, pp. 242-243). But critics have pointed out
that Sen’s functionings do require some objective
measurement for validation (Unterhalter, Vaughan
and Walker, 2007, p. 5). Instead, he advocates
evaluating each situation on a case-by-case bases and
does not identify a single criterion. Sen’s great
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strength may be that he teaches the art of identifying
human capabilities within an environment of
functionings and diagnosing their potential impact on
personal, social and environmental factors.
3 THE CAPABILITIES
APPROACH AS A
COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT
FRAMEWORK
The Capabilities Approach is a human development
indicator that measures human capacity and its
potential to transform peoples’ lives and offer new
opportunities. Its attraction lies with its multi-
dimensional and dynamic quality that provides a
measurement tool to assess potential change, an
elusive but significant category for assessing
educational growth. It has a dynamic and
interdisciplinary character that has been applied as an
analytical tool to a number of disciplines: Nussbaum
to ethics, philosophy and gender issues, Ingrid
Robeyns to Political Science, Sociology and gender
issues , Sabine Alkire to Poverty Studies, Elaine
Unterhalter to gender and social justice issues,
Lorella Terzi to Special Education and Social
inclusion strategies, Madoka Saito has linked it to
education—the first serious paper in this regard,
(Saito, 2003, p. 17), and Mathias Hatakka and Jenny
Langsten have treated it as a tool for development
evaluation in Informatics (Hatakka and Langsten,
2012, p. 23). In higher education Melanie Walker has
been one of the first to embrace the Capabilities
Approach and has argued that it is a as a
transformative tool for individuals and society for
democratic educational delivery (Walker, 2010, p.
899). More recently, it has been taken-up by e-
learning educators and administrators, although
research in this area it has barely scratched the
surface. In a resounding statement Alan Tait, Director
of International Development, Open University UK,
has noted: Open Universities and universities
delivering distance education do not accept currently
available educational options as either fair or
adequate and are intent on changing that and giving
both access and self-realization opportunities; to give
everyone a chance at self-actualization including
women, minority groups and the disabled (Tait, 2013,
p. 5). This ringing endorsement clearly articulates the
potential for positive change that the Capability
Approach offers.
Moreover, the Capabilities Approach offers a
framework to structure and facilitate the
implementation of competency-based higher
education that is currently under discussion. The
connection between Competency based learning and
the Capabilities Approach has been presented by
Lozano et al (2012, p. 132) as charting an important
direction in Competency assessment, but not
analyzed in detail—the research in this area is still
very recent. Competency assessment has recently
emerged as an influential education trend-setter and
along with it lifelong learning has come to exert a
central role. While Lifelong learning is probably as
old as civilization at the end of the twentieth century
because of globalization and technological
innovations the term has assumed a new significance
and became linked to skills development and
competence building to last throughout the human
lifecycle. Official recognition from the EU in its
efforts to standardize qualifications, not only across
the EU nations but to apply globally as well, has given
competency based learning and lifelong learning a
boost (EU: summaries, 2006). The EU has
recognized that learning is not confined to the
classroom but may be achieved in less structured
settings: by non-formal means that may or may not be
structured for which participants may or may not
receive certification such as foreign language clubs;
and informal learning that is experience gained from
job performance or personal satisfaction. Lifelong
learning and competency assessment became
formally a part of the EU agenda with the Bologna
process (1999) that also launched the European
Higher Education Area (EHEA) whose purpose was
to create a compatible and coherent systems of higher
education in Europe (http://www.ehea.info/). While
the EU has made a start in this area and has even
developed a European Qualifications Framework that
has been adapted by nearly all the national
frameworks of the EU nations, in Europe a single
credential criteria is still, except in the vocational
education area, an ideal rather than a reality. But it is
important that the model has been created and may be
developed in the future. Moreover, employers and
global organizations with real clout such as the
Organization of Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) and the World Bank are
pushing for this change (ERI SEE, Blog, 2009). In the
area of competency based assessment for higher
education, the United States is in the forefront,
perhaps because business has more influence in that
nation. Moreover, President Obama has asserted
leadership in this area. Federal aid to education is a
Democratic priority, but Obama is especially
committed to increase the higher education
graduation rates while lowing education costs and
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views competency-based assessment as one of the
means. And his goal is shared by powerful allies such
as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the
Lumina Foundation. Currently, a federal
experimental project is underway involving forty
higher education institutions in the United States,
dubbed the Competency-Based Education Network
(C-BEN), to test the feasibility of competency and
prior leaning assessment, even granting a waiver from
certain rules that govern financial aid to students
(Fain, January 13, 2015)
Yet, while competency assessment has become an
important educational priority, definitions of what
constitutes “competence” are in flux as are models to
structure the competency learning experience.
Lumina’s Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) is a
major effort in the United States to bring order to the
credentials uncertainty (Lumina, January 2014, pp.
13, 60). But at this time, the framework lacks criteria
for assessing the doctorate and it is an untried tool
even though the C-BEN project, that uses the Lumina
model, should produce valuable results. An attractive
feature of the Capabilities Approach is its flexibility.
It may be used alone as a framework to identify key
competencies and the developmental freedoms that it
seeks to promote as well as the constraints that may
hinder achievement. Another feature of the
Capabilities Approach is that it may be used in
tandem with other theoretical models such as Critical
theory used to analyze cultural assumptions and their
potential for re-structuring or other theoretical models
linked to human development and ethical norm
formulation. The Capabilities Approach describes a
broad educational profile; not only does it indicate
learning outcomes; but, more significantly, it
identifies the individual transformations attributes
that the educational experience is intended to achieve.
The Capabilities Approach transforms the
educational experience into a more holistic, multi-
dimensional personal, social and professional event.
4 CAPABILITIES APPROACH AS
AN OPEN FRAMEWORK
The Capabilities Approach is an open framework that
can live with a great deal of conflict and unresolved
thought (Sen, 2010, 135). The flexibility of the
framework can be easily adapted to the shifts of
identity that competency-based learning has
undergone and give it structure and direction. In the
1990s competency based learning was about
upgrading individual skills with focus on ICT skills.
In the twenty-first century, however, competency
based learning has become much more inclusive and
the context is now considerably broader that includes
socio-political, psychological and educational
dimensions that recognize that individuals are not
solitary beings but interact with society and
organizations (Jirgensons, 2015, p. 142). The
benchmark study for this new holistic thinking was
the 1996 UNESCO report The Treasure Within
(commonly known as the Delors report) that clearly
moved lifelong learning beyond skills retraining and
recognized a broad range of human capacities. It
organized the new learning around the “Four Pillars
of Learning” or four fundamental types of learning
needed throughout a person’s lifetime: to “Know,”
(including the “tools” numeracy, literacy, and life
skills), “Do,” (applied learning, critical thinking),
“Live Together” (understanding cultural diversity,
tolerance, learning to interact positively with others),
“Be” (developing an autonomous human identity)
(Delors, 1996, 85-91). The report argued that all
forms of learning needed to be organized around
these four pillars: “so that education is regarded as a
total experience throughout life, dealing with both
understanding and application, and focusing on both
the individual and the individual’s place in society”
(Delors, 1996, p. 86).
Delors report was followed by other educational
initiatives. In 2005 the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued the
DeSeCo report that identified the key competencies
for lifelong learning and was administered by the
Swiss Federal Statistical Office and provided support
by the American Departments of Education and
National Center for Educational Statistics (OECD /
OCDE, Revised December 2001). The Americans as
well were developing lifelong learning and
competency initiatives and competency-based
assessment is currently making serious inroads in the
United States. The DeSeCo competencies were
modeled on the Programme for Student Assessment
(PISA) that is also an OECD programme. The
DeSeCo competencies created a framework for
identifying key competencies, a method for
demonstrating their interdependence, and an
approach for identifying and adding new
competences, recognizing that change and
reformulation are necessary. Moreover, it provided
criteria for their assessment. The competencies were
classified in three broad, interrelated categories: Use
tools interactively (i.e. language, technology);
interact effectively with heterogeneous groups; and
act autonomously (OECD, May 2005). These
categories became the basis for identifying and
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mapping key competencies. DeSeCo key
competencies became the model for the European
qualifications framework (EQF) that is the key
component of the European Higher Education Area.
The EQF is the standard for the EU nations to classify
their education systems according to its requirements,
especially in the lifelong learning area (EQF)
(Jirgensons, 2015, p. 143) Nearly all the EU nations
have formulated their own National Qualifications
Frameworks (NQF) to correspond to the EQF criteria
and other European states such as Switzerland,
Norway as well as Turkey are restructuring their
educational systems to match the EU system.
While the Capabilities Approach shares much
with the DeSeCo competencies framework, there are
some important differences. Both models address all
dimensions of the human being in the educational
development process (Lozano, Boni, Peris and
Hueso, 2012, p.137), but Sen’s notion of capabilities
is more expansive and intrinsically orientated. It
argues for human freedom and personal autonomy as
its goal (Lozano, Boni, Peris and Hueso, 2012, p.
140). The notion of individual agency and choice is
central to Sen’s framework where an individual has
the freedom to select among various capabilities in
order to transform himself and society. While
individual development is paramount to Sen, he
recognizes that an individual is not an isolated being
but is potentially a transformative agent within a
broader social context. Both the Capabilities
Approach and DeSeCo competencies are pragmatic
and recognize the economic and utilitarian
dimensions of the educational process; but Sen moves
beyond pragmatism to an ethical dimension where
Justice and freedom are at the core and the
strengthening of individual agency and personal
autonomy is the focus. The DeSeCo competencies are
still guided by Human Capital theory where education
is regarded as the key driver for economic
productivity (Lozano, Boni, Peris and Hueso, 2012,
p. 136). Sen moves beyond a narrow economic
considerations and regards education as a much more
holistic experience, a rich mosaic of capabilities and
achievements. Sen’s theory focuses on the individual
and issues of quality. While the DeSeCo
competencies and other competency orientated
programmes are geared more to the needs of the
market (Lozano, Boni, Peris and Hueso, 2012, p.
139). Yet today economist measure development not
just by income and narrow income considerations, but
a broad range of quality of life indicators such as
political freedoms, educational attainment, gender
gap, levels of medical care and other quality of life
issues (Robeyns, 2003, 64). The focus is on
institutional and community capacity building with a
range of factors including personal ones that inform
the analysis (Alkire, 2005, p. 10). Sen is an
economist, but he is also a philosopher. His freedoms
are about development that focus on individual
transformations, but move outward to also interact
with and change society and institutions. Capabilities
in Sen’s theory represent potential functionings. They
are intended to give an individual more life choices or
freedoms. Achieved functionings give individuals a
broader opportunity selection menu that may be used
for further growth and development. Sen has
consistently demurred from providing a list; instead
he feels capabilities are context specific and are apt to
change as circumstances and priorities changes. Sen’s
system is adjustable and adaptable and is relative to
circumstances. Sen is satisfied with partial results
because he views capabilities transformation as part
of an ongoing process. Sen is a democrat and for him
capability “sets” are arrived at through public
discussion. A “capabilities set” in this case can be
identified with personal, educational, and
professional factors (Hatakka and Langsten, 2012, p.
35), and they are to be applied to measure human
levels of functionings and deprivations. These levels
are a person’s resources that may be converted into
functionings. The capability to convert goods into
functionings varies from person to person. In this
case, conversion of goods is broadly applied, meaning
the idea is not restricted to economics but also
includes an individual’s inner resources and social
support mechanisms. People must interact within the
parameters set by these “goods”—they are not just
independent or isolated or static (Sen, 1979, p. 219).
If an individual’s resources are meagre, it may
identify a situation of deprivation where an individual
has only limited capabilities to convert resources into
functionings. In fact, poverty can be a cause of
capabilities deprivation as can other factors such as
age, disability and gender (Sen, 2010, pp. 254-257).
These constraints need intervention and a measure of
equity injected if they are to be overcome. Public
discussion and debate play a key role in the
formulation of a capabilities strategy. In this process,
Sen draws upon social choice theory that indicate
individual advantages and disadvantages within a
certain “capability set”. One of the drawbacks of open
public discussion is that it may lead to the
“impossibility theorem” or “gridlock.” But for Sen
the stalemate represents a contribution to public
discussion by bringing into focus questions that may
not have been sufficiently addressed in order to arrive
at a clearer, more informed understanding of the
issues (Sen, 2010, pp. 279-280, 314). Capabilities are
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potentialities or potential functionings. The
capabilities sets may be transformed by conversion
factors that are personal, social and environmental.
These are the factors that activate the conversion
process. The conversion factors are important
because they may improve an individual’s life
chances or serve as constraints. The personal
conversion factors may include the level of education,
income levels, access to learning, and motivation (the
“inner resources” factors). The social conversion
factors may include social and family support or
antagonism and social, political and religious
attitudes that may be traditional or authoritarian and
restrictive of learning. The environmental conversion
factors include the infrastructure (buildings, libraries,
and access to materials), costs, geographic distance,
and technological access that may compensate for
distance. In Competency-based education a
Capabilities Framework can provide the strategy to
address a number of learning potentialities that can be
used to identify and plan a “capabilities set” or certain
strategies capable of achieving desired learning
outcomes. In this author’s opinion a capabilities
strategy for education needs to address the following
factors: intellectual growth, skills enhancement,
improved economic prospects, and social inclusion
through improved social interactions, self-confidence
and life satisfaction. If these learning outcomes are
successfully achieved and a higher level of
functioning is the result, they may lead to lead to
personal, social and professional satisfaction or as
Sen states a life a person may value. These in turn
become the platform from which an individual
reaches to attain further capabilities and
achievements. The failure to achieve can lead to
frustration. Sen is aware of the constraints or
deprivations from which an individual may suffer.
The constraints in a competency-based learning
context can result in—and again, in this author’s
opinion—inhibited intellectual growth, poor work
and life skills, poor economic prospects, social
exclusion, feelings of inadequacy, a sense of failure
and an impoverished life. Sen recognizes the adaptive
phenomena that people in reduced circumstances may
exhibit as may be shown by subjugated women and
oppressed minorities who scale-down their
expectations to gain a measure of pleasure in small
mercies. But Sen has no patience with these “practical
adjustments” and instead advocates “creative
discontent” (Sen, 2010, pp. 274-275, 283). In many
life circumstances “creative discontent” can be the
catalyst that prompts individuals to take action, often
through organized actions such as women’s group or
the formation of other social networks, advocacy or
self-help groups and, of course, education. The
lifelong learning pathway could be the result of these
prompting brought on by a desire to overcome
feelings of alienation from personal, social and
professional achievements. This used to be called the
digital divide, but now it is understood as being multi-
dimensional and a dynamic that operates on many
human and social levels at once.
5 CONCLUSION: EVALUATING
THE CAPABILITIES
APPROACH
Sen has often been criticized for not providing a “list
of capabilities” that can be used as a benchmark for
gauging the impact of social and economic strategies.
Martha Nussbaum has been his most vocal critic in
this regard and has presented a much noted list that
was discussed earlier. Robert Sugden, on the other
hand, argues that the approach is not operational
because of the problem of assigning weights to the
capabilities sets since quality of life issues are so
individualized. He feels more comfortable to
applying the traditional Marshallian economic tools
that measure real income and provide cost-benefit
analysis (Sugden cited in Robeyns, 2006, p. 352). Yet
Sugden discomfort indicates mainstream economist
squeamishness with quality of life issues. It is true, it
is difficult to measure these precisely; yet they need
to be incorporated by some means since they provide
a more rounded picture of what people actually value;
just to side-step these issues does not appear to be the
answer. Sen’s theory addresses human aspiration and
quality of life issues. He may be the first economist
to recognize that human life cannot be measured just
in terms of income, commodities and assets, but must
include quality of life evaluations that are intrinsic
and highly individualized. At first such an analysis
may seem lopsided, but Sen is right, there must be a
bridge between the “hard facts” of mainstream
economics and their impact on individual lives—the
daily “doings and beings” that figure so prominently
in Sen’s writings (Sen, 2007, p. 271). By Sen’s own
admission, the Capabilities Approach is incomplete,
but it can be used with different methods to assign
weights and perform evaluations (Sen, 2007, p. 277).
Sen’s approach in fact serves as a critical lens that
cultivates critical thinking. It examines the empirical
evidence in each set of circumstances from a multi-
layered perspective and arrives at a list of factors to
be addressed through a Socratic process of
discussion, debate, and participatory dialogue
TheCapabilitiesApproachasaLifelongCompetencyAssessmentFramework
507
(Lozano et al, 2012, p. 44). Sen’s Capability
Approach has been applied together with Nussbaum’s
Aristotelian theory of Justice (Sen, 2007, p. 281),
John Rawls’ arguments for resource conversion (Sen,
2010, p. 264), the emancipatory or critical theories of
philosophers Jürgen Habermas’ and Michel Foucault
that argue for institutional structural change (Zheng
and Stahl 2011, pp.72, 75), Lorella Terzi’s who
argues for social inclusion of individuals with special
needs (Terzi, in Walker and Unterhalter, 2007, p. 25),
and Yingquin Zheng who argues from the ICT
perspective and advises that the Capabilities
Approach can be most effective as a critical lens for
evaluating technological developments as a
contributions to human centered usability sets
(Zheng, 2009, pp. 10-11).
Sen has repeatedly argued that the Capabilities
Approach cannot be based on prior agreements (or
standard lists), but must be decided within each
specific context and its range of variables empirically
identified (Sen, 2007, 280). The selection process
could be arduous, but Ingrid Robeyns has developed
a five criteria selection process that can serve as a
useful guide for developing capability sets (Robeyns,
2003, pp. 70-71). She recommends that: (1) explicit
formulations; (2) present methodological
justification; (3) Context sensitivity—that means the
theoretical framework and details need to match the
context; (4) the list is a two-step process; the first is
the “ideal” list and the second is pragmatic that takes
constraints into account (or Sen’s partial results
achievement process); (5) “the criterion of exhaustion
and non-reduction”: that means non-duplication or
overlap of factors; that all elements need to be
reduced to the simplest, most explicit terms.
While the details of Sen’s approach may appear
fuzzy, he has designed a framework that identifies
capabilities in the space of functionings that marks
the levels of achieved functionings (Sen, 2007, pp.
277-278). For Sen “the fact that the capability
approach is consistent and combinable with several
different substantive theories need not be a source of
embarrassment” (Sen, 2007, p. 283). While this
straightforward declaration may raise eyebrows,
Sen’s approach represents an important method of
thinking about problems. He has shown that social
and economic circumstances cannot be reduced to
several objective factors, but must be human
centered—and that the objective and subjective must
appear of the same continuum. Sen’s approach also
offers a pathway for lifelong learning. The new
departure was already marked by the Delors report
the Treasure Within and was made policy by DeSeCo
declaration that defined key competences within a
lifelong learning context. Sen’s approach adds depth
and detail to this trend: the Capabilities Approach
highlights particular spaces for evaluating individual
opportunities and successes that can be achieved in a
lifelong learning context (Sen, 2007, p. 285).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research and writing of this paper was sponsored
by the European Regional Development Fund,
Project Jauzi (Eng. Trans.: New User
behavioural interpretation algorithms to facilitate an
efficient transfer of knowledge within an e-
ecosystem)
Nr. 2013/0071/2DP/2.1.1.1.0/13/APIA/VIAA/023
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