Beyond Key Skills: Exploring Capabilities Geoff Hinchliffe, UEA

Problems with Key Skills Assumes a spurious value-free approach to learning and development aids a narrow technicist agenda, driven by human capital theory, that can inhibit deep learning blandly assumes that transfer of skills is non-problematic reflects the undue influence of competence-based learning which most HE academics mistrust Despite much talk of contextualising/embedding/integrating key skills into the curriculum this is not always easy to do Many students do not engage with key skills unless compelled to do so Signs that students that do engage develop a ‘tick-box’ approach to key skills, perhaps because these are presented to them as discrete competences in the form of a list

Benefits of Key Skills Agenda Encourages a richer learner development through, e.g. a variety of assessment methods Promotes value of experiental and reflective learning (e.g. through deployment of Kolb’s learning cycle), especially when linked to personal development Helped develop view that HE has a responsibility for the all-round (holistic) development of student experience (e.g. with respect to their employability)

Current Position on Skills Wide acceptance of need to include skills development, in some form, as part of a curriculum Acknowledgement that there is no ‘going back’ to the position before key skills But criticisms of key skills as pertinent as ever In particular, there is a difficulty of making key skills intellectually interesting and challenging for teachers let alone students We need a way forward that retains the advantages of key skills but also deals with the criticisms. We should also recognise that giving UEA students key skills doesn’t give them any particular advantage in the graduate labour market

Capabilities Concept first developed by Indian economist, Amartya Sen, 25 years ago, through investigation of redistribution policies Sen wondered if economists’ focus on goods/resources or utility(satisfaction) levels was misplaced Suggested we ask what persons are capable of actually doing with their lives rather than how much income they have Suggested that capabilities amount to substantive freedoms (as opposed to formal or procedural freedoms) Martha Nussbaum, American philosopher, suggested that capabilities are also constitutive of a person’s well- being or flourishing

Capabilities and functions Sen suggested that capabilities are linked to what he called human ‘functioning’: a capability was the capacity or potential to function in a certain way A person’s ‘capability set’ could enable a range of functionings E.g. to function as a citizen requires a complex capability set (ability to express oneself, to respect others, be respected by others, access to information, levels of understanding, etc) So no one-to-one relation between functionings and capabilities But functioning is an index of capability: capability is evidenced through a range of what might be called ‘functioning-achievements’

Capabilities- a few observations For Sen, the link between capability and freedom is paramount: having a capability gives you the freedom to act but doesn’t compel you in any way Sen resistant to producing a list of capabilities: thinks these are context-dependent to be worked out by people on the ground Whereas Nussbaum is not averse to identifying a set of capabilities that anyone, anywhere, needs to have if they are to flourish (e.g. health, practical reasoning, affiliation)

Capabilities and skills We can see a capability as a certain mix of skills, dispositions and understandings. A capability also points to potentialities and possibilities rather than oucomes that can be defined in advance This seems to take us beyond the simplistic key skills approach (e.g. a capability could include ethical/cultural understandings) Thinking of abilities in this way would discourage the ‘tick-box’ approach The links between capability and freedom/human well being means that we have an approach to holistic development that is not driven solely by human capital theory At the same time the development of a capability set can contribute to employability as well

Capability in HE (1) Need to distinguish the capability of learning from the learning of capabilities – is there a distinctive capability of learning ? If so, the link between capability and functionning obliges us to think of learning both as a capability and as a functioning achievement: so at each stage of learning we ask: what can the student now do that he/she couldn’t do before An important dimension pointed out by Melanie Walker (Higher Education Pedagogies, 2005) is the development of agency: the capability has to be recognised and ‘owned’ by the student. At the same time, the development of capabilities also develops agent-empowerment.

Capability in HE (2) Is HE only concerned with learning or is it concerned also with other capabilities as well ? If HE is concerned with a range of capabilities can these be developed through teaching/learning or should this be supplemented in some way? Is there a ‘capability set’ that we think we ought to help each student develop ? E.g. should students be encouraged to construct their own capability set within certain broad guidelines ? Is there a capability set associated with students of English ?

Capability in HE (3) A workshop with Development Studies ug’s identified the following capabilities: –Critical judgement –Listening –Self Expression –Organisational

Suggested Capabilities for Humanities students could include: Critical Examination and Judgement Narrative imagination Recognition/concern for others (citizenship in a globalised world) (See Martha Nussbaum’s Cultivating Humanity) Reflective learning (ability to articulate and revise personal aims) Practical judgement (in relatively complex situations) Take responsibility for others