Child sponsorship an issue of equality

Matriculation Number: 2109132M
Child sponsorship – an issue of equality? Using Nussbaum’s capability
approach to examine whether child sponsorship programmes are just as
it pertains to the right of each child for self-determination.

Introduction
This paper will be looking at the rights, or freedom, of the child as an individual and how
Nussbaum’s version of the capability approach can be applied to them with regards to enabling
educational opportunities. I will be applying this issue, specifically, to the role child
sponsorship has in either enhancing or limiting a child’s freedom to be treated as an individual,
and what position the capability approach may or may not take on such an issue and the ethical
arguments on both sides. The inequality being that those who are not sponsored may have a
greater freedom of self determintation versus those who are sponsored. By child sponsorship
I mean in the context of sponsorship programmes that offer one to one sponsorship as opposed
to those who use sponsorship as a means to support a village or community. The reason being
that this paper deals with the rights of each individual child as an entity in themselves and how
one to one sponsorship may, or may not, inhibit their freedom for self-determination.
In the first instance I will outline the Nussbaum’s capability approach with regards to what she
has to say about the rights of children and the purpose and necessity of education. I will then
layout the rationale from a sponsorship point of view and what the organisations stated aims
are, the purpose behind education, and their position with regards to their programmes either
promoting or protecting child rights. I will look at the mechanisms by which the inequality is
perpetuated and set out the moral and justice arguments alongside the notion of fairness and
examine how the capability approach can be used to critique this. Finally, I will look at the
criticisms and grey areas surrounding the capability approach.
Throughout this paper I will be using Nussbaum’s capability approach as an initial
philosophical position on which to analyse whether or not there is a justification for increasing
participating in education in this way. The capability approach, essentially, is about enabling
all citizens to have the freedoms and opportunities to lead a life of their choosing and one that
is worthy of human dignity. This issue of freedom and what it actually means with regards to
child rights and education will be returned to throughout this paper.
Nussbaum’s capability approach
‘The capabilities approach is not a single philosophical theory, but a general type of approach,
and it houses many debates on important matters’ (Nussbaum, 2015).

Nussbaum’s variation of a capabilities approach is one of the leading perspectives that has been
widely employed in development ethics of recent years. These ethics include questions about
how different societies in the world relate to each other in the process of moving into the future
(Gasper, 2012). Nussbaum’s approach is outcome orientated and sees education as intrinsically
valuable to enabling capacity in later life. However, Nussbaum also recognises that there exists
multiple ways of determining what constitutes a good life and justice. Her approach followed
on from Amartya Sen’s but she is more direct in putting forward a perfectionist conception of
the human good that development policies ought to be promoting. Additionally, Nussbaum
goes beyond the (deliberate) incompleteness of Sen’s approach, through stipulating an
objective list of capabilities (Deneulin, 2002). She describes human development using the
language of human capabilities and spells out what she sees as essential for a good life and for
promoting a just and more equitable society. Nussbaum also sees the individual as an end in
themselves in contrast to the utilitarian view of the individual as a means to an end (Bessant,
2014). Furthermore the approach recognises the diversity of people in their needs and how their
needs will change over time and states the need for every nation state to meet a minimum
threshold of capabilities for their citizens.
From a philosophical perspective, Nussbaum’s approach is emphatically liberal and is a
political doctrine about basic entitlements. It is a different type of contractarianism based on
the concept of social justice rather than the idea of mutual advantage, thereby being superior
to preference based utilitarianism. The freedom Nussbaum propagates is one of positive
freedom based on Kantian autonomy, self-determination, self-mastery, self-fulfilment and self-
realisation i.e. the freedom to choose and to act, and capabilities allow individuals to do things
they have reason to value. They comprise the real opportunities to achieve things; they are the
actual opportunities of living (Worsdorfer, 2014). As Malhotra (2008) says, ultimately
Nussbaum argues that a capabilities approach, which evaluates how a particular individual or
society measures across a diverse range of speciﬁed criteria, can make possible a richer theory
of equality.
Nussbaum on child rights, justice and freedom
Nussbaum states that capabilities 'are very closely linked to rights, but the language of
capabilities gives important precision and supplementation to the language of rights’
(Nussbaum, 2011, p37). Nussbaum’s position with regards to children’s freedom is somewhat

constrained on the grounds that if freedom is not curtailed when we are young then there is
potential that it could impact on our future ability as adults to realise our capabilities.
Nussbaum calls this ‘capability-destruction’ and says that in children, this ‘is a particularly
grave matter and as such should be off limits’ (Nussbaum, 2011, p 27). In this Nussbaum is
tending to reinforce the conventional view that young people may only enjoy limited positive
freedom and that adults ought to manage and constrain the capacity of young people to make
choices until they are cognitively able to do so. This ‘requires’ adults to restrict and deny
freedom ‘for the student’s own good’. (Bessant, 2014). Nussbaum’s version of liberalism is,
ultimately, a stronger form of paternalism where interfering with someone’s choice is not only
legitimate if that choice harms others, but interfering is justified when the choice harms the
chooser herself. The potential problems of freedom and paternalism with regards to young
people and educational sponsorship will be returned to later in the paper.
Nussbaum and education
The capability approach raises many complex and difficult questions with regards to the role
of education and what part it should (or should not) play in promoting and attaining social
justice at all levels of society.
In Nussbaum’s list of ten capabilities that she considers essential for a life of dignity education
is specifically specified within the context of an individual having the capacity of:
Senses, imagination, and thought - being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and
reason-and to do these things in a "truly human" way, a way informed and cultivated by
an adequate education, including, but by no means limited to, literacy and basic
mathematical and scientific training..(Nussbaum, 2014, loc 1130).
According to Nussbaum, all institutions and individuals have a responsibility to support
education, as key to the empowerment of currently disadvantaged people. Education is a key
to accessing all the stipulated human capabilities to a threshold level but it is also among the
resources that are most unequally distributed around the world. Nussabaum (2003) states
clearly that domestic governments can do much more in more or less all cases to promote
education in each nation; but corporations, NGOs (funded by individual contributions, foreign
aid from governments, etc.) and the global public sphere can do a great deal more than they
now do to promote universal primary and secondary education everywhere.

Through this Nussbaum highlights the intrinsic value of education as the foundation for
realising other capabilities and valuable functionings (Nussbaum, 2006). It is important at this
juncture to establish what type of education, (according to Nussbaum) should be promoted. It
is a basic education that is covers not just the key skills such as numeracy and literacy in order
to realise other capabilities but one that encourages self-expression, an inquiring mind,
practical reason and affiliation (Nussbaum, 2004). The capability approach points to a major
revision of the role and character of education with the defence of compulsory education as a
fundamental right for all children but also that 'education should be individualized and aimed
at fostering human capabilities (Nussbaum, 2006). This offers an alternative paradigm for
thinking beyond access to education and for considering the potential for individual freedoms
both in and through education. Also, the capability approach recognizes that not all individuals
will participate or benefit from education in the same way, nor be able to convert the resources
afforded by education to generate the same or similar advantages in life (Hart, 2012).
However, what is important is that education produces rounded individuals capable not only
of productive employment but also of leading meaningful lives and participating in politics
(Saunders, 2013, p. 9). Additionally, Nussbaum argues that schools have an important role in
challenging stereotypes and promoting mutual understanding and recognition if democracy is
to continue to flourish in our diverse societies. (Saunders, 2013).
Capability approach as a perspective
The capability approach is a useful perspective on the issue of child sponsorship and the
freedom and rights of an individual as the approach is one of human rights but also essentially
practical. Additionally, Nussbaum looks into the issues surrounding the changing nature of the
nation state and highlight that an interdependent, globalised world means we need to take into
account issues of distribution and influence to ensure every person has the opportunity to meet
the capabilities threshold. This is important when analysing child sponsorship initiatives as
they are essentially crossing state boundaries spreading the belief that education is important
for one to make a good standard of life for themselves in an increasingly globalised world.
Nussbaum also believes that humans have an inherent need to live co-operatively with each
other and that ‘a fundamental part of the good of each and every human being will be to co-
operate together for the fulfilment of human needs and the realization of fully human lives.
(Nussbaum, 2003).

‘Particularly in the current world, where institutions and their relations are constantly
in ﬂux, I believe it is wise to begin with human entitlements as our goal. We think what
people are entitled to receive and, even before we can say in detail who may have the
duties, we conclude that there are such duties and that we have a collective obligation
to make sure people get what they are due.’ (Nussbaum, 2003, loc 2482)
Sponsoring a child in the developing world is a way in which people in one place can feel they
are making a difference by fulfilling one of another’s basic need, in this instance, fulfilling the
capability approach’s ascertain that education is a basic human entitlement. Worsdorfer (2014)
considered this to be ‘development as freedom’ (ie, freedom to achieve) and this helps to
remove poverty and other socioeconomic deprivations. Nussbaum (2003) states that ‘the
chance of being born in one nation rather than another pervasively determines the life chances
of every child who is born. She continues by re-emphasising that the capabilities approach is
urgently practical when it urges us to rethink our ideas of social co-operation and which directs
the development process to focus on enabling or creating conditions for choice. The capability
approach can be used to critique this issue of inequality, namely as it states a position both on
the issue of universal freedom and on education.
The child sponsorship model
The child sponsorship model has continued to grow and expand since World Vision launched
the first programme in 1953 with current estimates indicating that approximately 9.14 million
children are currently supported through 207 organisations worldwide (Wydick, 2013). The
purpose of sponsorship is to support children and their families financially in order to help the
child stay in education longer than they would otherwise have done with the intended outcome
being that a child and their family will have a better life and escape poverty in the longer term.
The organisations that run child sponsorship programmes see education as central to a child’s
ability to lift themselves out of poverty and there is plenty of evidence that education is
regarded as a vital accomplishment and has implications for a person’s life and average lifetime
earnings. The assumption is that education is a good, and more education is better for the
individual, the society and the economy. (Bessant, 2014). Plan UK states that “Love,
protection, food, shelter, cloths and education. I believe with these things, my dreams and goals
can be achieved” (Eekelen, 2013). Wydick (2013) conducted the only study in recent times to
focus on outcomes for sponsored children through Compassion’s program. Its program had its
emphasis on raising children’s self-esteem, reference points, and aspirations. As such, it aims

to simultaneously relieve both internal and external constraints that can impede progress in
education. In practical terms, child sponsorship represents the most intimate and direct form
of involvement with the poor in developing countries (Wydick, 2013). The reasons for this is
that sponsorship provides the sponsors with a window into the lives of people in a developing
country. (Eekelen, 2013) This is re-iterated by Wydick (2013) whereby international child
sponsorship programs mobilize resources by drawing on the psychological and moral instincts
people possess to care for their own children. The majority of sponsorship programmes allow
you to select a particular child to sponsor and, in return, for your monthly donation, provide
you with regular updates and photos of ‘your’ child.
What is missing from the aims of these organisation is two things. Firstly, much is said about
the child sponsorship programmes ensuring that all children have a ‘right’ to an education and
that they are about enabling that right, and by doing so they are recognising each child as an
individual. World Vision in particular has worked hard at combining the redistribution of
material goods with an ideology of holistic recognition of individuals, especially children. The
goal is to transform the sufferer instead of merely alleviating his or her suffering. (Heins, 2005).
However, little or nothing is said about a child’s right of self-determination, or even that it may
be schooling for schooling sake. The organisations are making an assumption any education
is better than none and that they alone have the right to say what constitutes a ‘good life’ for
sponsored children; ultimately if the parents or child disagree then they lose their chance of
sponsorship (McLellan, 2014).
This leads on to a second assumption on the part of these organisations – that for a child to be
‘empowered’ to achieve their aspirations and realise a good life for themselves they must be
empowered from the outside, that the beneficiaries’ or ‘co-operants’ in development projects,
are only able to achieve their autonomous destiny by being transformed from outside. This
amounts to saying that only if people participate in a programme will they be empowered. True
empowerment is where a person, whether adult or child, ‘participates in choosing, setting and
pursuing development goals. Participating is part and process of being empowered, of
becoming, in other words, autonomous’ (Kelsall, 2003). By these organisations saying they
are empowering young people through their programmes, it could also be suggested that they
are only able to do so within the context of a variety of ‘oppressive relationships’ which range
from the domestic and private to the international and public (Kelsall, 2003), thereby again
denying young people to choose for themselves. Gasper (2012) puts this issue particular
succinctly:

Unhelpfully intrusive ‘help’, whether it is ‘help’ that replaces beneﬁciaries’ own
activity or ‘help’ that dictates their pattern of activity and hence replaces their decision
making, simultaneously offends their felt rights to be active makers of their own lives
and leaves their capacities, knowledge, and will underutilized. The negative effects of
these two lines of counter-productive ‘help’ then reinforce each other in scenarios of
apathy and resistance, leading to wasteful use of resources and frequent failures to fulﬁll
objectives (Gasper, 2012, loc 3659 ).
So which right or capability is more important; the right of self-determination at the expense
of less formal education or the idea that some education is better than none in order to realise
capabilities in later life? Nussbaum sees a solution to this problem is by assigning the
responsibility for promoting others’ well-being (capabilities) to institutions (such as those
running child sponsorship programmes), but that should also include giving individuals broad
discretion about how to use their lives apart from that (Nussbaum, 2003). The question here
being should this also apply to children? Secondly, Nussbaum suggests that institution should
impose on all, albeit in a fair way, the duty to support the capabilities of all, up to a minimum
threshold. Ultimately, does Nussbaum’s capability approach when applied to the activities of
child sponsorship organisations perpetuate the inequality that those who are not sponsored
through schools have greater freedom of self-determination than those that are? These are the
questions and issues I will be critiquing in the next section.
Common criticisms of child sponsorship programmes
There is a wide range of criticisms levelled at child sponsorship programmes, not least how
children are selected, the promised financial rewards that often fail to materialise, and that they
are inherently discriminatory creating an ‘us and them’ situation between families and
communities. The purpose of this paper is regarding the rights and freedom of a child for self-
determination and there are a number of conceptual issues relating to power relations,
dependencies, externalities, impact, and religious agendas. (Eekelen, 2013). Liberalists
generally promote Western-liberal democratic values globally and those such as Nussbaum
express great concern for issues of social justice and wealth distribution on a global scale
(Nussbaum, 2006). However, in turn, they tend to end up promoting international institutions
which are deeply implicated in the marginalization of developing countries and their peoples.
(Malhotra, 2008). One way in which child sponsorship programmes have been accused of
doing such a thing is with regards to the fact that sponsorship can create a form of dependency

with the child becoming to rely on the money, and subsequently the creation and expectation
of gratefulness and subordination (Eekelen, 2013). This assumed cultural superiority can
disempower individuals and create a situation where external agents are perceived as necessary
to install internal desires and capacities for individual and community autonomy (Kelsall,
2003). As Williams and Young (1994) suggest, ‘these tensions are reproduced in the dilemmas
and contradictions of liberal development discourse: exhortations to respect cultural diversity
and the rights of communities exist side by side with injunctions to improve education,
encourage equality and erase patriarchy (Williams and Young, 1994). These issues are
wrapped up in the more general issues of education and schooling including that though
schooling gives a student command to some extent over the desirable properties of education
as a commodity such as satisfying a desire for learning; providing opportunities for friendship;
and opening the door to economic prosperity, the mere acquisition of a commodity does not
guarantee the acquisition of its desirable properties. As Kelly (2012) says the physical act of
going to school in the morning is not the same as deriving benefit from attending. Many child
sponsorship programmes are concerned with getting children into school regardless of the
education they receive and often the programmes dictate to the child and their family which
school they will attend. A ‘good education’ should mean having genuine choice; and
irrespective of what view of freedom is taken, (Kelly, 2012). More often, school and ‘getting’
an education is seen as the most accessible way to solve a series of seemingly intractable social
and economic problems but this is based on false logic. As Labaree (2012) says,
‘The population as a whole has seen its standard of living and quality-of-life rise as the
economy has grown, but schooling has had no effect on the relative position of social
groups in the social hierarchy…The overall effect of this process over time was to
increase the average education level of everyone in the labour queue, which artificially
inflated educational requirements for jobs. As a result, people were spending more time
and money on schooling just in order to keep from falling behind. They were forced to
run in order to stay in place’ (Labaree, 2012, loc 1438).
He continues by saying;
it has done very little to foster its core goals of democratic equality, social efficiency,
and social mobility. It has not been able to promote equality of race, class, and gender;
to enhance public health, economic productivity, and good citizenship; or to reduce
teenage sex, traffic deaths, obesity, and environmental destruction. In fact, in many

ways it has had a negative effect on these problems by draining money and energy away
from social reforms that might have had a more direct impact (Labaree, 2012, loc 1440).
The argument that it is worth limiting a child’s freedom and right to determination on the
grounds that it will enhance their ability to achieve greater capabilities in life does not
necessarily hold true and it is certainly not guaranteed. Furthermore, education could be argued
to, in some instances, be more harmful than beneficial and in fact limit other capabilities and
also future ones by reinforcing existing social inequalities related to, for example, class, gender
and ethnicity. (Hart, 2012). Ultimately, there is no meaning in saying that education is in the
pupil's own interests. With the prevailing relativity of values no-one - or no educator - can
claim to know what the pupil's best interests are. (Nordenbo, 1987). This corresponds to the
issues surrounding Nussbaum’s capability approach and the rights of the child as the approach
is about the freedom of each individual being to pursue his or her own conception of good and
to be able to lead lives of respect and value. John Stuart Mill first put forward the non-harm
principle: ‘The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of
a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. ‘(Mill, 1859, p. 223). That
would suggest that the justification for child sponsorship programmes that compel children into
school in return for money is based on the idea that someone else’s freedom will be infringed
if they don’t. But Mill, with regards to children, makes a point of saying that we have a right
to limit the individual liberty of children for their own good; thus paternalism towards children
can be justified, He assumes that children do not have the right to individual liberty, and
emphasises that parents have a responsibility towards their children, including the
responsibility to bring them up and educate them, and that the state has a duty to intervene if
this responsibility is neglected (Nordenbo, 1987). It is these two points that Nussbaum agrees
with her own justification for education and that are among the most heavily criticised. Firstly,
as Splitter (2011) says, it is dishonest to the point of hypocrisy for adults in power to ‘allow’
young people to think for themselves and form their own judgments in some areas but not
others. If the right for self-determination and ‘flourishing’ is limited to adults the approach is
assuming that all adults are naturally ethically and cognitively competent in ways that young
people can never be and that this ‘fact’ justifies constraints on young people’s freedom to
choose or act or the recognition and promotion of their rights (Bessant, 2014). This premise
claims that children lack the ability to know what is in their best interest and subsequently
requires an adult who has ‘duty of care’ to restrict and deny freedom ‘for the student’s own
good’. Nussbaum’s position is that children need to be ‘protected’ to ensure they do not limit

their subsequent ability to meet valuable functionings in later life (so called capability
destruction), and that means that a person’s capabilities is actually restricted at certain stages
of their life. The capability approach as it applies to young people is actually a narrow version
of it and this view has implications for student capabilities and their freedom to choose about
what they value, (Bessant, 2014)
Morality and justice
The moral argument against child sponsorship focusses on the grounds that it perpetuates an
inequality where those children who are not subject to child sponsorship and all that it entails
have greater freedom for self-determination than those who are sponsored. It may be suggested
that a child who is not sponsored would have greater opportunities to choose for themselves
what type of life they would like to lead and it should not be assumed that they education they
received would be any less or of lesser worth than those children that are sponsored.
Additionally, it could also be suggested that by incentivising a child to go down a particular
educational route does not necessarily lead to greater happiness of self-fulfilment. As Nordenbo
(1987) says, ‘children should be seen as persons in their own right and not as part of the
property of either their parents or the state’ or, in this instance, an NGO.
The justice argument centres around whether or not it is ‘just’ to limit a child’s freedom and
self-determination through a sponsorship scheme that will ensure they attend school. Often
injustice is couched in terms of what is lacking to enable a person to lead a dignified life and
that justice is one that seeks to change unjust structures affecting the poor (Mylek, 2010). The
issue of justice carries huge weight when it comes to universal basic education for all, but little
is said regarding who decides on what constitutes a basic level of education and what it should
include. The liberalist approach that Nussbaum advocates is characterised by a respect of the
freedom of people to pursue their own conception of the good. A policy that gives incentives
for people to live in a certain way (in this instance to attend an approved education facility)
could be considered unjust as it ‘threatens the freedom of each human being to pursue the good
she desires to pursue.’ (Deneulin, 2002).
Nussbaum’s capability approach is useful in understanding whether or not child sponsorship
programmes are just because of the particular view she takes on the role of education and who
should be responsible for providing it. Though Nussbaum advocates that a basic education is

a universal right it is with the understanding that it is the process of establishing ‘institutions
that guarantee that all human beings have the capabilities on the list, or can effectively claim
them if they do not’ (Nussbaum, 2003) that is key to realising all capabilities, including
education. Worsdorfer (2014) backs this up with his statement that ‘the basic duty of society
is to respect and support these entitlements by creating equal opportunities and capabilities, by
empowering people via inclusion and by granting equal access to education, healthcare and
politics. With regards to the rights and freedom of the child to choose whether or not to claim
that right, there is conflict over which is more important, the right to be free to choose or the
right to access an education? Ultimately, questions arise over whether the capability approach
and the activities of child sponsorship organisations enhance or limit a child’s freedom to be
treated as an individual and is there an inequality in access to education?
Nussbaum’s response
Nussbaum responds to these arguments by stipulating that freedom is not the only good to
promote, but one good among others. Access to education is paramount in order to make real
choices and to allow a person to have ‘informed desires’ in later life, namely ones that have
been shaped by proper education. (Kleist, 2013). As Nussbaum says ‘knowledge is no
guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior’ (Nussbaum,
2004, p 81), Nussbaum concedes that education cannot make citizens good, but without
education people are unlikely to be good citizens, so it is a (practically) necessary, rather than
sufﬁcient, condition for good citizenship. (Saunders, 2013). Nussbaum states that there are
some capabilities that do warrant interference on the grounds that they are so important
(Nussbaum, 2000b) and access to education is one of these. However, the capability approach
is not about mandatory education for education sake, rather it is about enabling a capability set
to make real educational choices as this is what freedom is really about. As Nussbaum, (1999)
says:
‘Human capabilities exert a moral claim that they should be developed. Human beings
are creatures provided with the right educational and material support, they can become
capable of the major human functioning’ (Nussbaum, 1999, p 43)
Denying this freedom, or capacity, is morally wrong and subsequently is a good argument for
the provision of certain ‘forms of education through which a person can explore her own

conception of what she has reason to value’ (Unterhalter, Vaughan, & Walker, 2007, p 4).
Thus, Nussbaum emphasises that these is more than one way to fulfil a capability and that the
goal is to provide genuine opportunities for access to education but not to force an individual
to take part in a particular way.
Moving forward and conclusion
Moving forward, the capability approach can be used as an approach to begin to address the
problem as there is recognition (as stated previously) not just on the value of education for
realising capabilities in later life but as Nussbaum also states a position on who she thinks
should be responsible for preventing the deprivation of capabilities or ‘capability failure’,
namely governments. Secondly, from a theoretical position, Nussbaum’s account is one of
only “a partial and minimal account of social justice” (Nussbaum 2006, p 71). Though her
theory focusses on a thresholds of a list of capabilities she does not imply that reaching these
thresholds is all that matters for social justice; rather, her theory is partial and simply leaves
unaddressed the question what social justice requires once those thresholds are met (Stanford
University, 2015).
Related to this is how a theory of justice can deliver the rights and duties it specifies and who
is responsible for ensuring (in this instance) that the capabilities specified are achieved to a
threshold level. Nussbaum advocates that it is ultimately people who should be seen as having
moral duties to promote human capabilities and that ‘humanity is under a collective obligation
to ﬁnd ways of living and co-operating together so that all human beings have decent lives.’
(Nussbaum, 2003). She carries on by saying:
‘The focus on capabilities reminds us that we shall need to make special efforts to
address the unequal needs of those who begin from a position of social disadvantage’
(Nussbaum, 2003, loc 1893)
Child sponsorship programmes are one way in which individuals, and institutions, can enact
on these moral duties. These programmes also have the advantage of supporting co-operation
in a global world rather than individuals acting alone. As Nussbaum (2003) suggests, ‘if each
person tries to choose individually, massive confusion would ensue. It is far better to create a
decent institutional structure and then to regard individuals as delegating their ethical

responsibility to that structure’. According to Nussbaum, 'institutions, then, must play a large
role in promoting human capabilities' (Nussbaum, 2006, loc 3495) and the duties to secure and
promote human capabilities are assigned to nation states and MNCs/NGOs alike (Worsdorfer,
2014).
However, alongside this is that the conception of freedom outlined by Nussbaum also suggests
how schools, universities and education policy communities all might work to achieve this by
encouraging searching questions about the value of education. Schools cannot equalize
differences like race, class, and gender and though more schooling raises the education level
of the population it does not reduce social inequality (Labaree, 2012). In reality, the conversion
of school into personal achievement depends on a variety of personal and social factors’ (Sen,
1985, p 25–26) Research suggests that educational functionings depend on such factors as prior
attainment, the presence of learning disorders, gender and level of parental education, as well
as on personal traits like ambition and perseverance; and the development of social
functionings at school depends on age, interaction with others, psychological disposition and
culture (Kelly, 2012). Consequently, any calculation of benefits derived from education cannot
tell us whether a person thrives or whether the community is just. This would hold true for a
child that is sponsored through school as much as for one who is not. The average sponsored
child completes 1.03 to 1.46 additional years of school (Wydick, Glewwe, & Rutledge, 2013)
compared to one who is not but as Kelly highlights above, that will not equate to a greater
chance of leading a flourishing life than one who was not sponsored. If that then is the case, is
sponsorship worth it with regards to the trade-off between attending compulsory education as
dictated by a sponsorship programme, with all the inherent pressures to succeed and the
dependency it can lead to, versus the opportunity for self-determination and relative freedom
not being sponsored provides? Ultimately, as Nussbaum (2015) says one of the greatest issues
of importance is ‘that of free will and responsibility. This is of course one of the largest, oldest,
and still most contentious philosophical issues.’

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