A public good professional capability index for university-based professional

education in South Africa

Melanie Walker and Monica McLeanSRHE, 8 December 2009

The research project

• ‘Developing Discourses. Higher Education and Poverty Reduction in South Africa’. Research project funded by ESRC/DfID July 2008-December 2009. Focus on professional education in 3 universities and 5 case sites.

• Research team: Melanie Walker, Monica Mclean, Arona Dison and Rosie Vaughan

• http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/EducationResearchProjects/DevelopmentDiscourses.index.aspx.

Our questions

• How might universities contribute to poverty reduction?

• How can transforming universities educate public good professionals who will make the choice and have the knowledge and practical skills to function in the interests of people living in conditions of poverty? [and how do we understand ‘transformation?]

• How can we develop a professional capabilities index/metric to guide discussion and change?

Why these questions matter(i) people in conditions of poverty are highly dependent

on public action and public services as they have no private resources to invest and suffer most from poor service provision and delivery (Keefer and Khemani, 2005)

(ii) socially conscious elites can play a significant role in affecting social policy and change in society when they see themselves as having interdependent lives with the poor, moral responsibility and obligation to others, and believe that public action to reduce poverty is possible (De Swaan et al, 2000)

(iii) professionals equipped with knowledge, practical skills and public service values can make a positive difference in the everyday lives of the people with whom they come into contact

Normative theoretical framework (i) human development

• ‘create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives’ (Mahbub ul Haq)

• development by and for people-as-agents, humane priorities, wide and deep participation, well-being

• goods in life for a range of valued human ends; purpose of development is to enlarge all worthwhile human choices.

• links between economic growth and human development are not automatic. ‘Valuable lives, even where there is high economic growth, can prove elusive’. (Alkire and Deneulin, 2009)

• in South Africa, human development meaning of transformation: promote the interests of all, especially the most marginalised and poorest members of society. (Taylor, 2000)

Normative theoretical framework (ii) capabilities

• Capabilities are the real and actual freedoms (opportunities) people have to do and be what they value being and doing. Capability approach asks us to evaluate development as the expansion of people’s freedoms to have well-being and agency in terms of what they themselves value being and doing, and to work to increase their freedom to be in those ways or to do those things.

• Nussbaum’s 10 central universal capabilities set out what is required for a fully human life.

• poverty as multi-dimensional(Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum)

Normative theoretical framework (iii) justice

1. justice (nyaya) as comparative (not transcendental) assessments

2. evaluate capabilities3. obligations to others 4. global in reach and responsiveness(Sen 2009)

Prospective (not evaluative)analysisProspective application of the capability approach (rather than an evaluation of whether capabilities have been expanded)To ask what changes to existing educational and social arrangements would expand professional capabilities and how ‘durable, equitable and sustainable such expansions would be’ (Alkire, 2008,p.32); thus, which policies and actions would yield greater capabilities? Prospective analysis recognizes that contexts of social norms, groups and social institutions are essential in developing policies which will advance capability formation.

Human development public good professionals can reduce poverty by....

Expanding the comprehensive capabilities of people living in conditions of poverty

Universities ought to form public good professionals and their capabilities and functionings to.....

Expand the comprehensive capabilities of people living in conditions of poverty.

‘Public good’ professionalismThe overarching theme was conceptualized as public good professionalism; we take this to mean ‘pro-poor’ professionalism. (around 61% of South Africans are ‘poor’ South Africa HD Report, 2000).

We looked at how public good professionals were being educated at three diverse universities (Silvertree – English, HAU; Fynbos – HDU; Acacia – Afrikaans, HAU), within five professional programmes (public health, social work, engineering, law, theology), and also looked for understandings of ‘transformation’.

Prospective analysis (Alkire, 2008), not an evaluation

• We did not expect to find a homogenous vision of transformation. We assumed that transformation processes involved tensions, contradictions and constraints, as well as opportunities.

• We assumed there would be diverse professional capabilities within a professional site which were valued.

• We thought there would be an iterative 'thread’ which could be ‘pulled through’ all the interviews for each professional site in order to tell a reasonably coherent story about educating professionals. If we found public good professionalism in alumni and students we assumed it is happening in some way in professional education and that we should then be able to find evidence.

Stages of data collection and analysis

Stage 1: 90 interviews with students, lecturers, university leaders, alumni, professional bodies, NGOs (August – October 2008). [also statistics, documents, newspapers, web pages]. Research working group (RWG) in each university.

Dissemination and discussion of project begins October 2008 and continues through to November 2009.

Stage 2: Coding of Social Work data around 9 themes: transformation; poverty; contribution to poverty reduction (positive); contribution to poverty reduction (negative); capabilities of the poor; professional capabilities; lecturer capabilities; educational contribution (positive); educational contribution (negative). We then generated 4 grounded professional capabilities:

Vision, Professional Agency, Affiliation and Resilience

Data analysis cont

• Stage 3: Coding and ‘chunking’ of lecturer, alumni and student data using agreed categories of professional capabilities, educational arrangements, and social constraints (by mid-March 2009)

• Stage 4: summary narrative produced (March 2009)

• Stage 5: construction of professional capabilities tables (indexing) across all 5 case studies, drawing on summary narratives (March 2009)

Data analysis cont.

• Stage 6: further adjustment of these 4 tables after feedback from RWGs (July-September 2009)

• Stage 7: drafting of expanded case study for each professional site), including discussion and feedback from each participating department (by November 2009)

• At each stage of the process, the RWGs played an invaluable role in giving input and feedback on formation of professional capabilities at universities and specifically on our emerging professional capabilities index.

Framework for interrogation: Indexing professional capabilities and professional education

From data, theory and iterative discussions.

Four interlocking tables:1. Professional capabilities2. Educational Arrangements3. Institutional conditions4. Social constraints/arrangements

Our index is a framework for interrogation, not a prescriptive blueprint

Four meta-functionings (valuable beings and doings)

1. Recognizing the full dignity of every human being.

2. Acting for social transformation and reducing injustice

3. Making sound, knowledgeable, thoughtful professional judgments

4. Working/acting with others to expand comprehensive capabilities of people living in poverty

Table One - 8 professional capabilities

(freedoms to be and to do and to choose):• Informed Vision and Imagination• Affiliation (solidarity)• Resilience• Social and collective struggle• Emotions• Integrity• Assurance and confidence• Knowledge, imagination and practical skills

Table Two – dimensions of educational arrangements

• Curriculum• Pedagogy• Encouraging professional ways of being• Supportive departmental culture

Table Three - University conditions

• Institutional culture and environment• Advancing criticism, deliberation and

responsibility• Social engagement• Building just futures

Table four- Constraints (social & educational/ legacy of apartheid)

• Systemic and material base (eg. immovable, fragmented, conservative poorly managed public services; material deprivation of service users and family and community breakdown)

• Cultural (eg. attitudes to black African professionals; Inability to communicate well with poor and vulnerable)

INDEX : Human development public good professional capabilities

1. vision

2. affiliation

3. resilience

4. struggle

5. emotions

6. Knowledge

& skills

7. integrity

8. confidence

PROFESSIONAL CAPS.

EDUCATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

dep

art

men

tal cu

ltu

res

bu

ild

ing

ju

st

futu

re

pro

fessio

nal w

ays o

f bein

g

En

gag

ed

cu

lture

leg

acy o

f ap

arth

eid

(racia

l op

pre

ssio

n)

INSTITUTIONAL CONDITIONS

SOCIAL ARRANGEMENTS

curr. & pedagogy

advancing criticism, delib, resp

systemic & material based

cu

ltu

ral

Capability

inputs

Biographies of dis/advantage (autonomous

agency & capability to

realize)

META FUNCTIONINGS

• recognise every person’s full human dignity

• act for social transformation and reduce injustice

• make wise prof. Judgements

• work/act with others to expand capabilities of the poor

What kind of professional education?

Praxis pedagogies: transformative, critical, attentive both to knowledge and to responsible action in society, with these features:

1. Contextual and disciplinary knowledge and understanding

2. Developing identity, commitment and community

3. Transformative learning to mirror the emphasis on transformation in South African society.

Professional education and human development, capability expansion and poverty reduction

If certain kinds of [public good] professionals are being educated by universities, this is a significant contribution to poverty reduction in South Africa, given that all professionals - engineers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, economists, business leaders, social workers, and so on - are now educated in universities.

Need for public reasoning and scrutiny about an evaluative /quality framework and the reach and responsiveness of HD and the CA.