Introduction: for what aim is education development significant?

Educators in the world seem to dedicate themselves to global initiatives for education development in local, national, and global level after the consecutive events to declare the development goals for sustainability in 2015 (Chung et al. 2018). Accordingly, the fourth goal in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) inscribed as “[E]nsure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” would be on a right track to be implemented by various stakeholders in education for development. However, it is still doubtful that the targets of education development in SDGs could be achieved within the given time. Furthermore, a question needs to be asked if the shared-goals in SDGs could be realized while considering that the former aims at education development have hardly reached to the promised ends. In addition, the specified targets and indicators of the education goal do scarcely seem successfully made at the end of 2030. Even though there has been rapid expansion of school education since 2000, the achievement in school education has been facing with harsh critiques that school education has never contributed to social development through widening opportunities of schooling for school-aged children in developing countries. In short, educational interventions for previous decades in the name of education development projects have often caused sustaining unjust conditions to those who eagerly participated in education, specifically school education.

Then, a serious question should be asked following after those critical comments to relate the agendas for education with wider consideration of social development. Can we achieve the targets of education development after SDGs were accepted to be an agenda to pursue for the next 15 years? If a set of indicators for education development according to SDGs is settled in the long run, is the only thing for consideration to look for ways to come true? Do we really know what to go for with the goals, targets, and indicators in SDGs? How do we recognize the meanings of education development while both education and development have been differently identified in terms of concepts, purposes, procedures, and assumptions?

However, it is hardly clear that any possible answers to the questions above can be made either positively or negatively because those may differ in terms of whom to make and what perspective of education development to be embedded. That is, both questions and answers are up to what values education development is based upon. Then, a more deepened investigation regarding the relationship between education and development needs to be done, rather, for the purpose of reaching more closely to answer those questions. While international development has been understood as an unprecedented effort by the international community to accelerate the development of poor countries, this effort has been based on an evolution in thinking about economic development-its nature, its causes, and the choice of policies for improving the rate and quality of the development process. Then, education is easily recognized as a means to achieve goals for development, which tends to make people see education for development without questioning ‘what education is’ and ‘what roles it plays in complicating relationships with development’ in both theory and practice.

Shortly, we need to problematize a given relationship between education and development, ‘education for development’. Then, this paper will critically analyse relationships of education to international development in theory and suggest an idea to put education as an equal position as development, namely ‘development as education’. By conceptualizing education’s position in connection to that of development, we wish education development as an area of study could be independently established in theory and contribute to building more just discourses on international development and cooperation in various dimensions all over the world. For the purpose of theorizing the concept of ‘development as education’, three approaches to education development will be brought in and discussed: ethical approach of Denise Goulet, capability approach of Amartya Sen, and pedagogical approach of Paulo Freire. These approaches will comprise a theory of education development in which development is education itself. However, actual problems still remain unresolved and open for further questions though while such a conceptual work of ‘development as education’ needs to struggle against with given paradigm of ‘education for development’ and continuously be practiced in the field of international development and cooperation.

Theories of education development and its limitations

Progress of theories of education development

It was late 1950s that scholars looked into its more conceptual nature of education development (Fägerlind and Saha 2016). While education had been recognized as a discipline to be possibly theorized beyond practical activities, development was scarcely argued to possibly be theorized or academically discussed in relation to educational practice. Both education and development stayed independently and education development could not grow theoretically but an area of practice of development by delivering set of knowledge, training human resources, producing learning materials, and evaluating processes. Education together with industries, public health, politics, cultural domains, administration, infrastructure, etc. had played a role of means in wider ends of development. Interestingly to say, it was economists who provided conceptual frameworks of education development in which development was identified as economic growth. Then, education was an investment to improve quality of human resources for the purpose of increasing gross national products. Schultz (1961), Denison (1962), and Becker (1964) were among those who continuously tried to measure the causal effect of education as investments for industrial products. That is, education was a part of theories of human resource development.

Similarly, modernization theory sought roles of school education as a national institution to play in fastening the process for social, political, and cultural modernization as well as economic growth. Modernization which is a required direction from pre-modern to modern society was accepted to be a must-take-place agenda through education (Huntington 1968). Education here was focused to complete the process. However, the light-sided role of education by modernization theory had been strictly faced with critiques by Marxists arguing that education functioned to reproduce a given class-based social structure (Fägerlind and Saha 2016). From the perspective of critical theorists, development was an agenda representing who have’s ideology and class-based interests. In addition, dependency theory, postmodern theories, and feminism theories provide critical views on the roles of education in development (McCowan 2015; McMichael 2016; Peet and Hartwick 2009), all suggest that education would work out within structures which education is powerless to transform. Even hermeneutical approaches that are critical to structure-based critiques of education and pay more attention to culture in micro- and meso-levels had hardly avoided the limitations the formers were taken in terms of positioning education in relations to wider dimension of societies, that is development (Yoo and Chun 2016; Yoo and Lee 2016).

However, these theories and theoretical perspectives explained the social changes qualitatively while they measure the development quantitatively by poverty index, GDP and labour market analysis which is not fit for the twenty-first century. Since the definition of development encompass the economic and political changes through multidimensional and multi-sectoral channels and political changes was considered to be influenced dominantly by economic factors which were not completely rational since the socio-cultural, geopolitical and anthropological factors have been ignored vastly. Though the discussion of sociology of education has brought these themes on the table, however, the measures of development remains highly economical only (Fig. 1).

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Education for development framework

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Considering such imbalance of two areas, then, how can we conceptualize the relation between education and development? As mentioned above, it is totally dependent upon what and how to identify the meaning of each concept, education and development. That is, we need to ask both ‘what is education?’ and ‘what is development?’ A theoretical connection between what education is and what development is can be made in the Fig. 2. However, it is hardly possible to have concepts of education development to which anybody can agree.

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Conceptual relations of education development

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In addition, what are authentic realities of education development as objects to be investigated? In fact, education development as a theoretical concept is composed of two seemingly independent sub-concepts, education and development. Education development has a very different meaning with regards with how ‘education’ and ‘development’ make a connection. ‘development in education,’ ‘education for development,’ ‘education in/of development,’ ‘development through education’, and so on. On one hand, education can be more stressed of the roles in relations with development as development describes a way to achieve goals education should reach. And on the other hand, development can be more focused rather than education while emphasizing education’s role in mediating and stepping toward ultimate development goals.

In further analysis, the position of education has become clearer into two major stems—‘education for development’ (Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1993) and ‘education in development’ (which often used as ‘education and development’ by many scholars). Education for development pointed towards the role of education for accelerating the humanistic development process where education in development paradigm focuses on the economic achievements as the prior concern and other socio-cultural infrastructures will be as a result of education to economic progress. This school of thoughts considers education as an instrument and an investment for socioeconomic development. However, the other stem sees the interrelation between education and development more widely and dynamically, considering the education can change the society in an expected way so that the geopolitical, socioeconomic and cultural changes paved the way of the desired development (Fig. 3).

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The role of education in different development theories

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As for the field of international development, education has been taken for granted as a means to achieve wider goals for development. That is, education has been materially utilized as a tool for development targets which ought to be attained in timely manners. Various theoretical approaches to education development mostly take such a view and practices of education development in the field have shown far clearer tendencies that education should work for realizing the development goals. Then, functions of education need to be specified into practice and the ultimate goals of education should be met to higher goals of development that are usually considered to be higher and more significant than those of education (Fägerlind and Saha 2016; Chung 2010; McMahon 2000). In short, education can be accepted as meaningful only when it apparently works out for development (Fig. 4).

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Flow of education for development

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Re-educating ‘development’ through education

However, the role of education cannot be limited to its functions in relation mainly to economic domain, to which should be resulted from education. Rather, the first critical role of education in the development discussion is to build critical awareness and to create public aspire of being developed. The critical consciousness of one on him/herself and the surrounding environment (from socioeconomic to geopolitical) is essential and for that the reorientation of education will be required which needs the two roles of education together—changing the education system and changing the overall perspective in every layers of society (Street 2014). If government officials or school district administrators are unaware of the critical linkages between education and sustainable development, reorienting education to address sustainable development will not occur. When people realize that education can improve the likelihood of implementing national policies, regional land and resource management programs, and local programs, then education is in a position to be reoriented to help achieve sustainability (see Fig. 5). But beyond achieving sustainability, it is the development itself which needs to be achieved first and for the development needs must be realized. In contemporary development discussion, education is vitally positioned for both aspects—realizing the needs and shaping the strategies.

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Developing development by education

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Beyond the development need-focused discourse, education is also at the center of development strategy focused-discourses. Education has been considered the key intervention factor for development not because it was a basic human right but from modernization to human capital theories sees education as a core means of development momentum. Education is considered as an instrument to achieve both economic and social progress, and therefore, the strategies for international development is highly education centric. Beyond that obvious, education has been considered vital in any development strategy. For example, the sustainable eradication of poverty can only be possible when the graduation will happen through participation and the livelihood options will be wider. For that, the poor needs to understand the vicious cycle which victimized them, and therefore, may be with external support, carefully plan and proactively participate in sustainable livelihood strategies. The similar logic applies for protection, human rights, disaster risk reductions, climate change resilient or any other development issues. The SDG is targeting of full inclusion and that will not be possible without education. Without spontaneous participation of the motivated beneficiaries, the international development agencies will not be able to do the job by themselves. Besides, the aid effectiveness is highly dependent upon the understanding of global issues at local level and participation of all actors. And that cannot be achieved through only awareness building since the required behavioural and attitude changes would not be possible without systematic and quality education. And that education is not only for the poor-deprived beneficiaries, but also for the all the stakeholder in the chain. To achieve success against SDG, all layers of stakeholders should be re-educated.

Following afterward, three approaches to development will be introduced to make alternative relationship between development and education: Denise Goulet’s ethical approach, Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and Paulo Freire’s pedagogical approach.

Ethical approach for authentic development

Denise Goulet and development ethics

Denise Goulet was recognized as a leading scholar in development ethics when beginning his scholarly career as a development economist. In his classic work, The Cruel Choice (1973), Goulet declares that the aim of his work is “to thrust debates over economic and social development into the arena of ethical values” and further he poses the question “is human development something more than a systemic combination of modern bureaucracy, efficient technology, and productive economy?” (Goulet 1973, p. VII). Goulet states that “development is not a cluster of benefits ‘given’ to people in need, but rather a process by which a populace acquires greater mastery over its own destiny” (1973, p. 155). In that sense, because development “is an ambiguous adventure born of tensions between what goods are sought and how these are obtained” (Goulet 1997, p. 1161) the how or means of development are as important as the ends, which ought to be pursued ethically.

Following that perspective, Crocker (2014) defines development ethics as the “‘ethics of global development’ an ethical reflection on the ends, means, and processes of beneficial social change (and maintenance) at the local, national, regional, and global levels (and their relations)” (p. 245). Dower adds that development ethics “consists in looking at the values and norms involved in development, often comparing different approaches and seeking a justification for what seems the right approach” (Dower 2008, p. 184). All in all, development ethics can be briefly put as “an ethical reflection on the ends and means of local, national and international development” (Astroulakis 2011, p. 15). More importantly, development ethics must have a real impact on development policies, including development aid, to influence changes in the practice of development (St Clair 2007).

Concerning its origins, Development ethics builds on its intellectual foundations from Marx, Gandhi, Lebret, Myrdal and even from Fanon, Prebisch and Dependistas (St Clair 2007) although it was Goulet who made it into a discipline drawing mainly from Freire, Lebret and Myrdal. The latter two, although western economists, shared the idea of the need of a change of values and the flaws of extrapolating concepts from Western to non-Western societies (Goulet 1997, p. 1164). Lebret’s conceptual involvement to the ethical development can be summarized in that “development refers to the whole person and every person, and that development does not result from an accumulation of projects, but from how these projects Incorporates with a local, regional and global image of a human development” (Astroulakis 2013, p. 104).

Subsequently, more critical authors have emphasized the negative sides of globalization and modernization done under the banner of development. It has been particularly emphasized that neoliberal policies on globalization are in fact negatively related to development because the myth of modernization has used the discourse of development to ‘assist’ those left out without considering that existing structures which are the actual causes of poverty and underdevelopment (St Clair 2007; Crocker 2008). As such development ethics appears as an alternative to mainstream notions of globalization and development for it reconceptualises poverty as a global and moral problem looking at the way transnational policies and practices of development impact the poor and vulnerable people’s agency and dignity (St Clair 2007, p. 260).

Yet, the scope of development ethics remains controversial for there is no clarity on whether it should be an issue of rich and poor countries or only in poorer countries, as well as whether it should focus on development aid, capital flows, migration, humanitarian interventions, human rights, etc. (Crocker 2008). Development ethics can be conducted at various levels of generality and specificity from ethical principles, goals, and models to institutions, projects, and strategies. In particular, authors such as the Sen et al. (2010) etc., have developed similar and overlapping perspectives that are closely connected with development ethics, for instance, needs, capabilities, human rights, human development, and social justice.

Authentic development and ways forward

In his celebrated essay ‘[t]he Shock of Underdevelopment’ (1973), Goulet denounces underdevelopment as dehumanizing experience as it conveys poverty, powerlessness and hopelessness. Evidently for Goulet, poverty does include but is not limited to the problem of income, and acknowledges that poverty is a low or lacking self-respect, consciousness and health. This new conceptualization of poverty has been widened by many other authors who, like Goulet, see poverty in several more dimensions more than a lack of income. Powerlessness is poverty of power, for underdevelopment makes people fate completely dependent of forces out their control, it creates servility ‘towards men whose decision govern the course of events’ (Goulet 1997, p. 23). Powerlessness is deeply connected with the fact that developed countries and elites do in fact create and maintain structures that impose underdevelopment and that many ‘development’ approaches are in fact ‘anti-development’. Hopelessness is the personal and societal impotence in the face of hunger, disaster and death.

For Goulet, the first step to overcome this condition is consciousness, the simple realization that development is possible for them too gives people the power to think they can be ‘potential agents of their own destiny’. Following the idea that poverty is not merely a lack of income or food, in Hunger and Public Action (1989) Drezer and Sen do a historic account of the famines introducing the idea that famines and hunger are not only related to the lack of food but actually it is also the deprivation of other kinds, namely, a lack of enough ‘capabilities’, which is what makes people ‘socially useful and influential’ (1989, p. 12). Thus, Seen widens its view of poverty and sees mainly as a lack or deprivation of capabilities. By encouraging capacities people have not only the ability to make a higher income (and thus escape poverty) but also the ability to fully participate in the society (Drezer and Sen 1989).

Just like economics uses two types of analysis, positive (‘what it is’) and normative (‘what it ought to be’), development ethics as proposed by Goulet is a rather normative approach for what development ought to be if it is to be genuine. Denis Goulet elaborates in the distinction between the descriptive and normative definition of development. Understood descriptively, development is a ‘process of economic, technological, social, political, and especially value change’. (Crocker and Schwenke 2006, p. xvii). On the other hand, understood normatively it is what he refers as ‘authentic development’ which consists of the transformation of the victims of underdevelopment into conscious agents. Interestingly, although he proposes some normative conditions for genuine development to take place, because genuine development is based on the self-agency, he maintains that “specific solutions can only come from the communities themselves as they struggle to find their own way” (Goulet 1979, p. 565). Authentic development is fundamentally self-development where the self may be the individual but also the group at any level (local, regional, national).

In effect, the concept of development itself is evaluated from the perspective of development ethics which is not simply a supplement of development but an alternative of mainstream contemporary economic thought. Unlike the classic economic perspective where means and ends are clearly separated, one of the foundations of development ethics is its judgement of development both as a means and as an end. Goulet reflects that development can also be understood both as a goal and as a means. Development is the goal of a better life (materially richer, “modern,” and more technological)—and at the same time development is the means to achieve that vision. Such ambiguity in definition is undoubtedly reflected in the practice of development which has lead development both to the westernization of institutions and social practices and at the same time to the rejection of Westernization and its model of change (Goulet 1994).

Being said that, the content of the dimensions of human existence, and therefore, the fulfilment of those dimensions to achieve a good life leads to the ethical question of what does a good life mean? In essence, the answer can be traced back to the concept of ‘eudamonia’ developed by Aristotle, meaning in happiness or human flourishing. It was especially after the 1950’s the idea of a more human development started to take place and included social and political dimensions that were previously excluded. As noted by Dower, development includes socioeconomic and political dimensions that together are relevant to the improvements of people’s well-being (Dower 2008). From that perspective, development ought to enable “more people to achieve well-being or more importantly the very poor to achieve the basic conditions of well-being which for various reasons they lack now” (Dower 2008, p. 185).

Gasper as well sees development as a multidimensional normative conception representing “a vision of societal progress within which various components figure all considered parts of a good life” (Gasper 1999, p. 11). Thus, in seeking for a good life, the content of that good is value relative, and therefore, the very idea of development is value relative as well (Gasper 2008; Dower 2008). In the same way, that search for a good life implies intention, then it is chosen from different options which then involves development ethics considering alternative paths for development (Dower 2008). If so, ethical questions arise related to the nature of the goal itself such as what values are embedded in the goal, and the rightness of those values. Questions related to the means for reaching the goal arise too: are the means the right ones? Do they conform to the goal? (Dower 2010). The last question is essential for “the means are ends in the making”, and therefore, “the means we take ought to express the values we are trying to promote (…) if we are pursuing peace we should do so peacefully, if we are pursuing justice we should do it justly (…)” (Dower 2010, p. 36).

Goulet (1992) reflects of development as a two-edged sword where he recalls the gains and losses of the so-called ‘development’. Among the gains the list includes (a) improvement of material well-being, (b) technological progress, (c) institutional specialization, (d) freedom of choice (especially for women and children), and (e) worldwide interdependence (Goulet 1992). Among the losses, Goulet lists (a) explosion of the dynamism of desire (excessive desires for goods thus breaking solidarity), (b) vertical dependence among nations, (c) increased in anomic or social alienation, (d) destruction or delusion of cultures, and (e) evacuation of meanings of systems of different cultures (Goulet 1992). In relation to how development should be measured and which dimensions should be included, he proposes mainly five dimensions: an economic component (dealing with the creation of wealth equitably distributed); a social ingredient (measured as well-being in health, education, housing, and employment); a political dimension (including values such as human rights, political freedom, and some form of democracy; a cultural dimension (in recognition of the fact that cultures confer identity and self-worth to people); a fifth dimension of full-life paradigm (comprising meaning systems, symbols, and beliefs concerning the ultimate meaning of life) (Goulet 1992).

Goulet comes with deep questions regarding the nature of development itself such as development for what? What is the foundation of a just society? Are human rights instruments or worthy for their own sake? In answering those questions he asserts that development mainly consists in freedom for which Goulet asks again, Freedom for what? (Goulet 1979). Freedom to pursue human development. At this point, it is understood that human development is not a static but a historical condition, and therefore, it is constantly redefined. Above all, relative importance is given to the self as the main source of development. “Self-reliance is a long term goal which can be realized only in stages.” (Goulet 1979, p. 558). This is why, he insists, in technical cooperation and technological transfers the voice of the recipient must always be considered and their participation is a basic requirement for a genuine transformation.

Goulet dedicates several parts of his work to specific strategies for technology transfers and development cooperation which in his eyes run the risk of imposing paternalistic values from the donor stand to that of the recipient. Goulet focuses in particular in technical cooperation as opposed to technical assistance which for him implies “charity, paternalism, or some other attitude demeaning to the recipient (…)”. Goulet refers to technical transfers which are categorised as “value-laden political acts with far reaching implications.” This means that “how assistance is given is as important for development as what is provided (1997, p. 172)” so the paternalistic relationship between donor and recipient must be overcome. Technology transfers is seen too as a potent instrument of social control (Goulet 1997, p. 47).

Goulet mentions some ‘symptoms’ of the paternalistic provision of assistance and not genuine cooperation. (a) Criteria for the definition of the needs does not take into account the recipient who should have a “major voice in defining the modalities of transfers”, (b) there is a lack of efficient follow-up as well as lack mechanisms to really incorporate plans into ongoing national decision-making (1997, p. 177). And (c) there are not clear purposes. According to St Clair (2007), all of those symptoms are the result of powerful institutions such as multilateral institutions responsible for outlining development from a very narrow neoliberal perspective. Such institutions are led by development ‘experts’ ill-prepared to deal with development complex processes and its impact on peoples’ lives (St Clair 2007). Therefore, in terms of methodologies and strategies, development ethics should be a sort of dialectical process between knowledge and the development practice if it does not want to end up too abstract and disconnected from realities (St Clair 2007; Malavisi 2014).

Capability approach for social justice

Amartya Sen and capabilities

Amartya Sen is the one who started to develop the concept of the capability approach since 1980. Its core argument is that (inter)personal evaluations should focus on both functionings (beings and doings) and capabilities (substantial freedom to achieve those functionings). Ever since, the capability approach has been interpreted and developed by numerous theorists and scholars in a wide variety of disciplines.

Understanding difference between the concept of functionings and capabilities is critical steps to make to understand the Capability Approach as an evaluation framework (Alkire 2002). “A functioning is an achievement, whereas a capability is the ability to achieve. Functionings are, in a sense, more directly related to living conditions, since they are different aspects of living conditions. Capabilities, in contrast, are notions of freedom, in the positive sense: what real opportunities you have regarding the life you may lead” (Sen and Muellbauer 1988, p. 36).

Functionings are ‘beings and doings’ that indicate various states of human beings and activities that can be undertaken by a person. Being educated, being literate, being undernourished, being immune to HIV are examples of ‘beings’. On the other hand, voting in an election, going to university, getting a license, taking a child to school are examples of ‘doings’. Therefore, many features of a person’s life could be described either as a being or a doing. The concept of functionings in the Capability Approach does not contain value judgement in itself, i.e., morally neutral. Some functioning could be univocally good, for example; being well-nourished or univocally bad, being raped. However, badness and goodness of some functionings may interpreted depend on the context.

Capabilities are the real freedom and opportunities that a person to achieve functionings. Therefore, if being literate is a functioning, the real opportunity to learn how to read and write is the corresponding capability. The distinction between functionings and capabilities is between achievements, on the one hand, and freedoms or opportunities that one can choose, on the other.

Here is Sen’s classical illustration of two persons who lack the functionings of being well-nourished. There is a person who is undernourished living in a country with severe faime, while the other man decided to be fasting in front of the Blue House, the Korean Presidential residence, to protest. Although both lack the functioning of being well-nourished, the opportunity and freedom not to be well-nourished is crucially distinct. To explain the differences of two, we need the concept of capability and distinguish it from functionings. While both persons are hungry, lacking the achieved functioning of well-nourished, the protester has the capability but choose not to achieve the functioning of well-nourished, which the other one lacks. In most development evaluation practices, we focus on measuring the ‘state of being’ which is being undernourished without asking why they are not well-nourished and what does that mean in a certain context. Based on the capability approach, a person's real freedom and opportunities, the capabilities, are asked as well as the functionings (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6
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Distinction between functioning and capability

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Commodities are goods and services that we utilize in our daily lives. Functionings are the ‘beings and doings’ of a person. And the capability is ‘the various combinations of functionings that a person can actually achieve’. For example, a muslim man made a business trip to Seoul and is served pork ribs for dinner from his business partner. And he is not interested in having it because of either personal, social, environmental conversion factors (Sen 1992). In this case, the conversion factor could be his religion, physical condition, or power relations to affect his decision.

Functionings are the ‘beings and doings’ of a person, whereas a person’s capability is “a set of vectors of functionings, reflecting the person’s freedom to lead one type of life or another” (Sen 1992, p. 40). Functionings and capabilities have been considered both as the ‘achieved outcome’ when measuring inequality, well-being and social development. However, if two concepts are distinguished in regard to the practice of evaluation, it would bring different perspective of interpreting various social phenomena as well as approaches how to tackle them.

Development for a just society

One of the main strengths of the capability approach is its pluralism that it could account for interpersonal variations (Robeyns 2000). This is not a side-effect or by-product of the capability approach, but is of central importance to Sen: “Human diversity is no secondary complication (to be ignored, or to be introduced ‘later on’); it is a fundamental aspect of our interest in equality (Sen 1992, p. xi).” The capability approach accounts for diversity in two ways: by its focus on functionings and capabilities as the evaluative space, and by the explicit role it assigns to individual and social conversion factors of commodities into functionings (Robeyns 2000). Because income reveals different extent of people’s well-being, for example, for a person who is healthy physically and psychologically and employed; but for an unemployed person, or a person who is suffering from emotional or psychological stress, Sen (1992, p. 101) said “these standard measures are all basically parasitic on the traditional concentration on the income space and ultimately ignoring the fundamental fact of human diversity and the foundational important of human freedom.”

When a person converts the commodities into functionings, the conversion factors differ the results. In conversion factors, there are individual, social and environmental differences. Taking the case of gender as an example, Sen (1992, pp. 112–113) is aware that there might be differences in conversion ability between an average man and woman. A man and a woman have same access to the higher education, receive the same degree and both wanted to use this degree to pursue professional career, have stable income, and so on. Now, if they are situated in a gender discriminating labour market, it will be much more unfavorable for woman to use the same degree to enable related functionings that man could do. Therefore, sometimes not only the individual conversion factors matter but also social characteristics such as social norms, power relations, culture and tradition can also affect the conversion of the commodities to functionings. Therefore, it is very crucial to understand and consider the pluralism that an individual has as well as situated when evaluating its well-being (Fig. 7).

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Conversion factors and the role of education

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The core question asked by the capability approach is not ‘how happy you are’ or ‘how well-off you are’ but instead, ‘what are you actually able to do or be?’ or ‘Are you free to live your life as you wish to be?’ This approach of asking well-being; therefore, requires more information to be answered. Considering the human diversity as well as complication of social and environmental factors that an individual is surrounded by, measuring capability instead of functionings makes significant difference in terms of interpreting various social phenomena including inequality among individuals, regions and countries.

Pedagogical approach for full humanization

Paulo Freire and critical pedagogy

Paulo Freire is remembered as an educator who opened a window of critical pedagogy as Pedagogy of the Oppressed became a classic to read for progressive teachers in the world. Beginning at adult literacy program, he was famed for critical thinking through dialectical dialogues in problem-posing education. Freire has been well researched in arena of education, critical pedagogy, educational reformation and community development but at national or global scale of development, the Freirean thoughts are not under the lights yet. Though the recent work of Gadotti and Torres (2009) discussed the contribution of Freirean educational thoughts for development, however, the connection of education to the development beyond humanization and liberating curricula remains ignored.

As Freire analysed, education cannot be neutral; it can either be domesticating or liberating (Freire 1970). Freire’s literacy method’s key concepts are conscientization and dialogue has contributed to our understanding of the processes of education and social change. But, how that fits in the concurrent development approach where neither morality nor humanity but the economy is the prior concern of development. Chin and Jacobsson (2016) leveraged latest ICT landscape to focus on mobilizing youths’ local actions as solutions to global challenges but as Freire (1970) has argued that educative processes are never neutral, the nature of the education that make those youth capable remain ignored. Since Education can either be an instrument of domination or liberation and educative processes domesticate people where there exists a dominant culture of silence (Freire 1970), the understanding of what education and what development Freire proposed and how that can happen needed to be realized. If social reality remains limited to what they are taught and told to accept and believe, the true empowerment and ownership of achieved development cannot be substantiated or will be sustainable.

Conscientizing development for humanization

Freire explained education as a non-neutral political process (Roberts 2007). On one hand, education functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it. And on the other hand, it becomes the ‘practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (Spaaij and Jeanes 2013). Since, it can either be domesticating or liberating, the analysis includes a criticism of the banking education (Freire 1970).

While presenting the concept of ‘development’, Freire at first criticize the concept of ‘development’ itself. As Freire explained while discussing the cultural circles that, the different characteristics can be found among different social groups and circles which in broader perspective are unfairly categorized as ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped.’ To confront the economics-based idea of development, Freire delimit the concept (Freire 1970, pp. 101–117). The understanding of development can be from many different ontological perspective, as Freire substantiate with different examples. He presented that, the aspects of reality should be considered more critically and crucially while defining development since this concept presents a greater totality, and therefore, should not be approached with rigidity (Freire 1970, p. 120).

Freire, in collaborating to the idea of development, considered development as a ‘generative theme’ and then build up the discussion with breakdown and codification and presented that the understanding of development can be different in different reality and cultural circles. Throughout the discussion, Freire established the relationship of development with cultural actions. He rationalize the relationship of cultural invasion and underdeveloped and presented why the conventional development approach fails. These two conditions clearly presented Freire’s concept of development and imported important factors for development—a movement, creativity to improvise and space–time momentum. In addition, presentation of the ‘development’ as the sub-set of transformation illustrated that development is a process of continuously being and achieving a meaningful change with non-rigid targets or ambitions.

Towards clarifying the concept of development, Freire criticize the idea of modernization and oppose that modernization is not development. Development goes beyond the economic measures of progress and, in Freire’s thoughts, enhance the self-sustainability of a society from inside (Freire 1970, pp. 160–162) (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
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Freire’s development as humanization

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However, as Freire depicted, the idea of going beyond economic criteria towards development, the reformist solutions even does not present true development. Because, the reformist solutions do not solve the internal and external contradictions of a society. Thus, while carrying out the reforms, that does not necessarily present the liberation, since, to achieve the reforms, the strategies adopted by the society are similar of the previous oppression. Therefore, development, as Freire conceptualize, should not be the extensions of the previous ongoing process in renewed forms, but the emergence of freshly and continuous re-realization of reality by the people themselves with space–time (in another word, historical, contextual and cultural connections) continuum (Freire 1970, p. 162).

Since the contradiction of oppressor–oppressed has been established concretely, the situation must transform, and Freire presented, the transformation should address the issues from subjective and objective rationality. Therefore, the change we foresee for all, should not necessarily conflict with the individualistic perspective. To plot Freire’s thoughts to transformation, it is important to rationalize the understanding of his subjective and objective reality and the way he established the relationship between them. (Freire 1970, p. 50).

In the process of transformation, the subjectivity and objectivity are equally important since ‘a world without people’ is impossible. Since the world and human beings do not exist from each other but remains in constant interactions, the objective reality is the product of subjective human action. Therefore, the transformation, as Freire illustrated—rooted from the Marxist thought, is not happen by chance.

However, in constantly changing society, the reality becomes oppressive in the contradiction of oppressor and oppressed. In discussing the transformation, Freire proposes praxis as the solution and the path of liberation. However, in Freire’s opinion, the mere perception of reality which is not followed by critical intervention will not lead to transformation since the perception is not true. Therefore, building true perception is required where the role of liberating education is crucial. Another false perception of reality occurs when the transformation of objective reality threatens the subjective class interest. (Freire 1970, pp. 50–52).

Thus, without critical intervention in the reality, it becomes fictitious which is why the non-deniability of the facts but rationalizing it to certain interest resulting into losing the objectivity, and therefore, mythicize the reality, which again contradicts with the possibility of true transformation. To resolve these issues, Freire proposed a two-stage solution for true transformation. (Freire 1970, p. 54).

This is why cultural action, how people create changes in their culture and society, is crucial to confront the world of oppression since the revolutionary transformation is rooted from the cultural expulsion of the previously created myth. And for that, he presented the need for praxis (combined reflection and action) and argued that the revolutionary leaders and oppressed people should both use praxis while struggling for liberation so that the leaders are not merely imposing their will onto the oppressed. Otherwise, the struggle will be hollow—Freire says that a “revolution for the people” is equivalent to “a revolution without the people.” Therefore, Freire projected that transformation should be revolutionary and the leaders of the revolutionary transformation will not impose control over the process through do bear the responsibility. Cultural action with the characteristics revolutionary leaders must have to be effective at creating change and for that, instead of praxis by the dominant elites, the revolutionary praxis should be in action.

According to his argument, the true development does not lie in the form of any dependency and but to the formation of freedom of the individuals or collective for themselves. The cultural revolution, therefore, stands as the pathway towards true transformation. “[A]s historical, autobiographical, “beings for themselves,” their transformation (development) occurs in their own existential time, never outside it” (Freire 1970, p. 161). Therefore, the transformation must have to take place within their own reality and by themselves.

Discussions and conclusion

Challenging the current paradigm of education development theories, we provide a conceptual frame of ‘development as education’ in which three different approaches to development are introduced and analyzed to make a new relationship between education and development: Denise Goulet’s ethical approach for authentic development, Amartya Sen’s capability approach for social justice, and Paulo Freire’s pedagogical approach for full humanization. While modern theories of education development make education positioned under and colonized by economic benefits, these three take alternative approaches for the purpose of realizing genuine development. Here, education is supposed to play a major role in achieving what development actually means, which is not different from what education means. In this sense, development can be education itself and vice versa. By this, roles of education cannot be minimized to a simple tool but a firm foundation to lead what to do and how to do as well as for what we need to do.

At first, as ethical development captures the dissatisfaction with the traditional hegemonic view of development, it positions education in a very paralleled way. Because development ethics is defined in normative terms, it is concerned in how development is achieved and the ethics within the instruments, means, and mechanisms used to achieve ‘authentic development.’ The most important contribution of development ethics is that development purpose is to improve the life of individuals and that individuals are not the instruments of economic development, on the contrary, economic development should function and be an instrument in service of human beings. However, again this level of abstraction is not enough to, for example, assess a particular institution. This is why, development ethics deal with different levels of specificity, from general ideas such as ethical principles, freedom, and democracy to specific institutions projects and strategies (Crocker and Schwenke 2005). Taking ethical approach to development, education fosters a more ethical development. That means how education can nurture self-agency and social participation, core values of development ethics. That is, to what extent education forms people critical and aware of the development process so that they can participate actively in such process in which social justice, self-agency, freedom, praxis (awareness and concrete actions) to serve to improve one’s own life matter most. In addition, the practice and strategies of education development need to be reflected from an ethical point of view to see whether the ends justify the means. The end of ethical neutrality in science and technology is easily one of the most contentious sides of development ethics for science famous claim on ‘neutrality and objectivity.’ Again, neither ideas of education nor development are static and can’t be dominantly expressed as one factor’s scientific mechanism (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9
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Three approaches to development as education

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Second, capability approach is concerned to social justice as individuals as social beings can have more freedom of choice by functionings which are actualized forms of capabilities. Sen elaborated more on the role that education, along with health, is significantly important in encouraging capabilities that allow people to fully participate in the society. Through education in particular, people are not only more informed but also have the capacity to make more ‘effective political demands’ for the services provided by the state (Dreze and Sen 1989). Then, the participation of the less-affluent people should be both collaborative and adversarial for they can also become agents or the transformation of the society. For the authors, education (i.e., basic education) has distinct roles. In terms of the instrumental value, education can: a) making the person more employable (thus raising their income) and as a consequence, affecting the person’s entitlement to food and health care; b) increase person ability to use available opportunities (better informed citizens); and c) generate a less prejudiced and intra-household distribution of food and health care (e.g., female literacy increases the bargaining power of women within the household) (Dreze and Sen 1989, p. 262). Besides the instrumental value of education to generate more effective political demand encourage more participation in national economic growth, education, above all, has an intrinsic value for the role it plays in “making humans lives more worthwhile through broadening one’s horizon of thought and experience” (Dreze and Sen 1989, p. 267). Although capabilities may have outcomes such as numeracy, literacy and scientific knowledge, capabilities are not reduced to that. Yet, Dreze and Sen (1989) refer for the most part to basic education; “when it comes to enhancing basic human capabilities (…), the role played by public support—including public delivery of health and basic education—is hard to replace” (Dreze and Sen 1989, p. 258).

Third, Pedagogy of the Oppressed provides development theorists with critical analyses on a given paradigm of development in which people have been oppressed and dehumanized. For Freire, education should “provide students with the necessary instruments to resist the deracinating powers of an industrial civilization” (Gadotti and Torres 2009). Freire’s philosophy whose key concepts are conscientization and dialogue has contributed to our understanding of the processes of interaction between education and social change—both as continuous process. Freire’s analysis of education and social change centers on his contention that education cannot be neutral. Domesticating education denies people the power to think for themselves and become architects of their own destinies (Torres 1994, 2014). It does not provide them with a critical perception of their own social reality which would enable them to know what needs changing and actually take action to change. While education that liberates, shatters the silence and makes people become aware of their condition and their democratic rights to participate in social change or transformation (Sanders 1968). People are educated with a deliberate aim and intention of raising their awareness and liberating them from their naive acceptance of life and its dehumanizing effects on them. Freire’s thesis is that social change should come from the masses and not isolated individuals. The political nature of Freire’s education benefits those who are struggling to have a voice of their own because they live in cultures or sectors of cultures which are totally silenced. Considering that the education–development relationship is not same for every reality and it ought to mention that every reality is different in its constructions, vision and faced challenges. This is because each reality is the manifestation of expression of the cultural circles within. This absence of the consideration of micro-reality in conceptualizing education and development and the role of each for each other not only problematize the generalizability of education–development relationship, but build conflicting cases and failure. Therefore, the macro conceptual framework should also be not volatile but highly flexible and continuously constructing in real-time based on dialogue and praxis. In short, as theory and practice of education development should not exist individually, rather, it is more desirable to have a theory–practice where abstract thought, site-specific experience and practical conduct exist together in a dialectical relation (Crocker 1991).

Can we achieve the goals of development for sustainability till 2030 as agreed in the world? Again, it depends upon how to define what development is. The concept of development can be rationalized as both a process and a product as many development theories projected and so does their criticisms, the challenge in conceptualizing development within a static structure posed significant challenges mentioned above. Then, contentious changes of development theory without an ethical lens have led development to simply a ‘change’ mainly in economic terms without a qualitative assessment of the nature of the change: that is why we need to continuously ask the following question, “What do countries need economic growth for?” Responding to it, economic progress considered as major goal of development has been challenged and clearly criticized by the post-development narrative that development requires the transformation of many disciplines in non-segregated or integrated way. Overcoming the nature of education development theories where education is mainly objective to the other domain, development, alternative paradigm of the relationship between development and education is necessary which is summarized above.

Most of all, the ‘oppressor–oppressed’ class will exist forever which conflicts with the Freirean proposition and vision of SDG—an equitable development if we consider the economic achievement at the center of overall development (Torres 2007). Escobar (1995, 2011) illustrated the politics of development and how the concept of development has been transcended to accommodate the politics of making and unmaking the third world or developing state’s concept which remains, ironically, at the core of today’s development operation and debate. Similar findings presented by Mosse (2005) in the context of aid-oriented development, focusing the practice of development. In both cases, the authors focused on the understanding of the existed ‘reality’ of the local community (in broader sense, nation) by the local community themselves and the international community. Then, we need to consider the basis for development as cultural according to Denise Goulet, Amartya Sen and Paulo Freire, a global just society in different contexts will be created.