Australian coder workforce survey 2002 - managers’ responses

In 1994–5, the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA) Ltd conducted a nation-wide survey of clinical coders working in Australian hospitals. The survey (National Coder Workforce Issues Project (NCWIP) funded by the then Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health) provided baseline data about the coder workforce in terms of its size, the educational backgrounds of coders, circumstances relating to their employment and their needs in terms of continuing support and training. Importantly, the survey was conducted before casemix-based classification and funding had been implemented by all states and territories. It has now been nearly eight years since the original survey was conducted and casemix is in use in some form in all states and territories

Universities are crucial spaces to foster capabilities for the formation of social citizens in times of growing inequality

The value of the university cannot be reduced to a monetised figure. By drawing from human development discourse and the capabilities approach, Melanie Walker argues the university can be re-imagined in terms of its commitment to individual freedoms, social citizenship formation and social change. The university should have an active role, engaged in local and global spaces, to foster and support a just and sustainable society

Why Lawyers and Legal Educators Should Care About (Epistemic) Justice

Society shapes the law and the law, we hope, might shape society for the better in turn. Legal traditions and practices therefore surely ought to secure for all citizens the prerequisites of a life worthy of human dignity. In a speech to the Routledge-Modise Law School in Johannesburg in September 2008, Justice Kate O’Regan[1] drew on Antony Kronman’s theory that one of the main characteristics identifying the practice of Law is that it is directly concerned with the public good. Lawyers have a responsibility to foster the legal system and the rule of law; at times, this might require them to suggest new laws or legislation; at other times, it might require them to criticize judgments which may not appear correct; at other times, they may need to protect the rule of law itself.[1] O’Regan, K. ‘Lawyering in Our New Constitutional Order.’ (2009). UCT News Alumni Magazine cited in Walker. M. Higher Education Pedagogies. (2016) Maidenhead: Open University Press & SRH

Professionals and public-good capabilities

Martha Nussbaum (2011) reminds us that, all over the world people are struggling for a life that is fully human - a life worthy of human dignity. Purely income-based and preference based evaluations, as Sen (1999) argues, do not adequately capture what it means for each person to have quality of life. There are other things that make life good for a person, including access to publicly provided professional services. The question then is what version of education inflects more towards the intrinsic and transformational possibilities of professional work and contributions to decent societies? This paper suggests that we need a normative approach to professional education and professionalism; it is not the case that any old version will do. We also need normative criteria to move beyond social critique and to overcome a merely defensive attitude and to give a positive definition to the potential achievements of the professions. Moreover universities are connected to society, most especially through the professionals they educate; it is reasonable in our contemporary world to educate professional graduates to be in a position to alleviate inequalities, and to have the knowledge, skills and values to be able to do so. To make this case, we draw on the human capabilities approach of Sen (1999, 2009) and Nussbaum (2000, 2011) to conceptualise professional education for the public good as an ally of the struggles of people living in poverty and experiencing inequalities, expanding the well-being of people to be and to do in ways they have reason to value – to be mobile, cared for, respected, and so on. In particular we are interested in which human capabilities and functionings are most needed for a professional practice and professionalism that can contribute to transformative social change and how professional development is enabled via pedagogical arrangement

Learning for sustainable futures: a human development approach to citizenship education

AbstractSituated in debates on citizenship formation through higher education, thispaper contributes to literature on policy processes and practices in theoperationalisation of National and Strategic Studies, a citizenship educationcourse in Zimbabwean teachers’ colleges. This is in order to evaluate theextent to which these practices and processes support the principles of humandevelopment which are linked to sustainability. This paper argues that ahuman development approach focusing on four values: empowerment,participation, sustainability and equity is significant in reimagining policyprocesses and practices that contribute towards learning for sustainablefutures. Drawing on interview data of two mid-level policy stakeholders, froma qualitative research study, the results indicate that policy processesundertaken in the introduction and operationalisation of National andStrategic Studies do not reflect and uphold democratic principles contributingtowards human development, social justice and hence sustainability. Thecontested democratic space in the broader context of the course has a bearingon the policy processes and practises adopted by policy stakeholders

Theorising multiply disadvantaged young people’s challenges in accessing higher education

This paper sketches an innovative conceptualisation of disadvantaged youth, shaped dialogically by the interactions of theorising and data from a case study at Orange Farm informal settlement in South Africa in 2013. The study focused on the challenges for the young people in this area in accessing higher education. Drawing on Sen’s and Nussbaum’s capability approach, complemented by a theorisation of vulnerability by Misztal and of oppression by Young, the study illustrates how the concepts should be interconnected to generate a framework for understanding the experiences of multiply disadvantaged youth, as well as issues of equity for them in accessing HE. The paper highlights the need to understand young people’s experiences and aspirations using multidisciplinary theorising, in conversation with empirical lives. Overall, advantage is understood as having the freedoms (or capabilities) to live a life each person has reason to value, with genuine opportunities for secure functionings now and in the future. A disadvantaged life, by contrast, would have less or neither

Forming Lawyers who can Contribute to Equitable Access to Justice in South Africa

Drawing on Amartya Sen, this paper proposes that clinical legal education and training should be evaluated in the light of contributions to wellbeing and agency freedoms, foregrounding people’s capabilities as an appropriate metric for judging access to justice. The context is post-apartheid South Africa and aspirations towards transformative Constitutionalism which seeks to operationalize values of dignity, equality and freedom for all. The role the legal system, mediated by legal practitioners, should support Constitutional values and the public good as envisaged by the National Standards for university legal education. This challenge is explored in the article, drawing on a qualitative interview study. The researchers interviewed candidate attorneys across six University Law Clinics to identify the professional capabilities they valued for the purposes of contributing to enabling people to flourish in their everyday lives. Transformative Constitutionalism further suggests a set of capabilities which legal practice should enable. Through the perspectives and voices of practitioners, valued legal capabilities and the corresponding university education and training practices are also identified. The idea of legal capability is developed and broadened both conceptually and empirically, building on work both by Atkins and Habbig and Robeyns. The claim is made that legal education, lawyers’ professional capabilities, and transformative Constitutionalism should be grounded normatively in a capabilities metric of justice and hence what matters for people’s wellbeing and agency freedoms