Sen (2008, p. 335) proposed that: ‘[I]f someone has the power to make a change that he or she can see will reduce injustice in the world, then there is a strong social argument for doing just that (without having to dress all this up in terms of some imagined cooperative benefits enjoyed by all).’ So, being advantaged, which university graduates are, brings ‘inescapable’
responsibilities: ‘[C]apability is a kind of power, and it would be a mistake to see capability only as a concept of human advantage, not also as a central concept in human obligation’
(p. 336). This argument justifies capabilitarian higher education scholars’ interest in producing graduates oriented to the public good.
In South Africa, the literature on this topic is small. First, there are studies exploring whether and how the capabilities for political agency and critical citizenship are formed through university education.15 Some were based on participatory action research in which students develop as political agents by taking part in projects related to gender (Boni &
Walker, 2016; Walker, 2018b; Walker & Loots, 2018). Two further studies were based on interviewing students to explore how taking part in specific extra-curricular programmes expanded their capabilities for ‘citizen agency’. Walker and Loots (2016, p. 63) found that for a mixed race and gender group of 50 students going abroad as part of a leadership programme, ‘Confidence emerged as the basic platform for changing selves: taking on new knowledge, finding their own (informed) critical voices and participating in discussions.’
Moreover, there was evidence that the students had come to value four functionings in relation to race (critical awareness of race, racism and history; affiliation; critical reasoning;
to act for change) which Walker (2016, p. 1284) judges as ‘capabilities formation to support a non-racist campus and society, emerging from inauspicious circumstances.’ Conversely, Mtawa and Wilson-Strydom (2018, pp. 9–10) found that taking part in community service programmes led students (at an historically white university) to unquestioningly ‘position community members as disempowered individuals in need of assistance’, which entrenched paternalistic attitudes.
15 There is also a small South African capabilitarian higher education literature which focuses on gender and disability. For this chapter I am bracketing it, although it deals with the how institutional and pedagogical arrangements can be capability constraining or expanding (Loots, & Walker, 2015, 2016; Mutanga, 2016; Mutanga & Walker, 2015, 2017; Unterhalter, 2003; Walker 2018a;
Walker & Loots, 2017).
HigHer education PatHways
Secondly, there is a small body of literature from the capability perspective about professional education in South Africa. This includes a book by Mikateko Mathebula (2018) on engineering university education in South Africa and Germany; and a book and papers based on a research project16 in South African universities (two historically white and one historically black) of five professional education departments: engineering, theology, social work, law and public health (McLean & Walker, 2012; McLean & Walker, 2016; Peppin Vaughan, & Walker, 2012; Walker & McLean, 2013). In both studies, there was an explicit focus on what kind of university education would produce public-good professionals interested in poverty reduction conceptualised in the broad capability sense of expanding clients’ freedoms and opportunities beyond the economic (in the case of Mathebula’s engineering study, the interest was in professionals oriented and able to act for sustainable development). For both studies a wide range of stakeholders (students, educators, alumni and employers) were interviewed and workshops held to explore collaboratively what was valued and what the contextual constraints were, so that the sets that emerged were not over-idealised. There were overlaps in the capability sets that finally emerged. The capabilities for a public-good engineer were: solving problems; being confident and feeling empowered;
being resilient and having a sense of affiliation; and working in diverse fields. For the other study the capabilities for professional public-good which spanned the professions were:
knowledge and skills; informed vision (for the country and profession); affiliation; integrity;
resilience (these five were strongly encouraged in university departments); social and collective struggle; emotional reflexivity; and assurance and confidence (these three were differently inflected or disappeared according to profession).
Both these studies engaged with what kinds of universities, departments and pedagogical arrangements would be likely to support students’ formation as public-good professionals.
Peppin, Vaughan, and Walker (2012) note that the findings provided examples of how education can either ignore poverty awareness and engagement or enable students to value and choose pro-poor professional work. The latter was done by: exposure to the realities of poverty in South Africa; the development of critical reasoning, giving students the ability and opportunity to explore their own underlying values; and imparting certain skills and capacities (resilience, relevant professional knowledge, understanding of collective effort and struggle), so that those who chose a ‘pro-poor’ professional path would be better equipped to do so. But even when pedagogy was enabling, some students cared more about social transformation than others. The authors conclude that pedagogy itself should respect individual’s freedom to choose what is valuable, despite Sen’s insistence on the obligations of someone with expanded capabilities.
16 ESRC/Dfid (Award No. RES-167-25-0302)
Conclusion
I have brought together capabilitarian higher education research from South Africa which, on the one hand, explores the access and participation experiences of black students from poor rural and township backgrounds; and, on the other, engages with both black underprivileged and privileged people (black or white) to explore how universities might produce graduates oriented to and able to act as public-good professionals. I have done this because the transformation of individuals and society in South Africa will take both the full educational inclusion of people who experience extreme poverty and professionals who want to address the multi-dimensional problems associated with the poverty in which most black South Africans live and want to contribute to social transformation in a highly unequal society. Although there is still only a small number of students from impoverished backgrounds getting to university, it is growing, and the evidence is that, while they certainly want to support their families out of poverty, they also want to ‘give back’. Many of the capabilities for inclusion and for public-good professionalism are often the same (knowledge and skills; affiliation; respect and so on).
The capability approach offers a contribution to higher education in South Africa primarily because it derives from a normative framework which places human flourishing as its primary goal, chiming with the country’s transformation goals. Though the field is relatively small it offers contextualised, collaborative and feasible ways of thinking about university education goals; for designing and evaluating curriculum and teaching methods;
and for making recommendations about policies and practices. The focus of capability higher education research is on how South African universities might expand graduate capabilities for choosing valuable functionings for success at university and for productive, fulfilling work and life after university.
However, the South African studies discussed are also cognisant of societal and material constraints, often attributable to the legacy of apartheid: for example, under-resourced and often poorly managed public services; a brain drain of skilled professionals either into private practice or jobs abroad; and a dearth of black professionals in some fields because of race-based discrimination. While there is a small body of evidence about some graduates developing as public-good professionals, as noted above, little is known about what happens in work and life to graduates who come from poor backgrounds. We do not know whether their dreams are being fulfilled.17 University education cannot do everything:
graduates might expand their capabilities as students, but they need conditions in employment and as citizens to convert capabilities to achieved functionings.
17 See the ‘photovoice’ project with students from the University of the Free State talking about their aspirations: https://www.ufs.ac.za/
docs/librariesprovider34/default-document-library/photo-voice-project_crhed_2018.pdf?sfvrsn=9f96a621_0
HigHer education PatHways
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