This article examines Amartya Sen's writings on the capabilities approach and education. Sen sometimes suggests a loose association between education and schooling. Elsewhere he concludes that one can read off the outputs of schooling as an indication of capabilities and an enhancement of freedom. While the capability approach provides a valuable way beyond human capital theorizing about education, Sen's writing fails to take account of the complex settings in which schooling takes place. Sometimes schooling does not entail an enhancement of capabilities and substantive freedom. South African policy responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic highlight how using the capability approach to evaluation without paying attention to conditions of gender and race inequality yield only half the picture.
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