Amartya Sen

What are the implications when one takes the individual as the basic unit of analysis? Specifically, how does such an analysis relate to notions such as caste and race? If human beings are assumed to be equal in value by virtue of the very fact that they are humans, then it is the individual that must be taken as the unit of analysis, and not blanket concepts such as civilisations or religions. An analysis based on civilisations, for example, fails to acknowledge humans as equals and potential agents of change, by default.

This paper compares human capital theory with the capability approach and lays out the problems with the theory. As a knowledge paradigm for education and development, it finds the theory wanting. However, it has remained the foundation for sectoral work in education and health by international financial institutions. The paper spells out the problems, historically, with World Bank lending in the education sector, some of which follow from human capital theory, while others follow from a broader neoliberal agenda. It concludes by delineating the foundational elements of an alternative knowledge paradigm for ?education for all?, based on the capability approach and its extension.

There is a blind spot in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen's updated version of their earlier book India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity which has to do with the instruments of public action. Representative governance at the local level is something new in India after 1993 and Dreze and Sen fail to appreciate the true nature of local self-government as a key instrument of people's participation.