A
humanitarian profession as diverse as the population it serves, social work
today has taken roots globally, as a profession that enables people to deal
with various complex and difficult circumstances. Complexities may stem from
individual, family or structural issues that require a range of professional
social work skills to mitigate circumstances, alleviate distress and enhance
adjustment. Social work is concerned with ensuring the responsiveness and
effectiveness of various social institutions and systems within which
individuals belong and operate. The ultimate goal, then, is to guide in a
better quality of life and promote psychosocial functioning of people and
thereby an improved social order. Social work education is hence the crucible
where one professional repertoire is precast and the professional acquires
knowledge, attitudes and skills so vital for effective and ethical practice.
The
development of social work education is closely linked with the development of
social work profession. Basically, in terms of social work profession and
social work education the world is divided into two parts. The Northern part
which includes USA, UK and other European countries and the Southern part which
comprises Asian, Middle-East Asian, African and other third world nations.
Social work is an international
profession and similarly social work education internationally has always
embraced both academic and practical components. Social work education
comprises of a theoretical component taught in the classroom and field- based
education involving integration of the academic aspect and practice.Being
a global profession, education for social work takes place in most of the
countries in the world. It has an outreach of around 3000 schools of social
work in over 114 countries in the world.
Social
work is a problem solving and helping profession. When clients enter into a
professional relationship with social worker, they are carrying various issues
and problems and are seeking help in resolving these issues. For social workers
to adequately intervene with clients they need to be trained in the many tools
and techniques that are required to best serve clients. Hence, social worker
need to be prepared to deal with a great variety of issues, without social work
education that cannot be possible.
Finally,
social workers need to be educated in some of the emerging theories related to
solving problems and its relation to individuals, groups and community for a
better understanding of how to develop our society.
Problems
of Social Work Education
Social
work education has its journey in Bangladesh during the period of Pakistan
through a short time training course by the help of the UN in1953 and social
work education and training was extended afterwards. College of social welfare
and research was established in 1958 and being included under Dhaka University.
The college started its educations programs in the sessions of 1958-59 with 55
students.
Since social work has historically been
regarded as non-professional in character in Bangladesh, it has experienced
certain limitations. The main limitations currently of note are:
i) The Department of Social Service
(DSS) under the Ministry of Social Welfare recruited social work graduates it’s
for various social welfare programs up to 1973. However, since 1974, the
government of Bangladesh has changed its recruitment policies to make these
fields of services open for master’s degree holders from any discipline;
ii) There is no professional
association/organization such as those developed in other parts of the world.
This includes an accreditation body for social work education – such as the
council on Social Work Education; a professional organization such as the
National Association of Social Workers or a licensing board such as a Board of
Behavioral and Social Science Examiners.
iii) Although some changes and
adjustments in the curriculum have been made, the current curriculum is
still not up to an international standard and not in accordance with the
changing needs of Bangladesh society;
vi) Standard textbooks in mother
language-Bangla and indigenous reading materials are not available in
accordance with the demands and needs of the students. As a consequence,
reading, practicing and teaching of social work is not professionally
recognized. There is no aptitude and attitude tests taken like developed
countries in selecting students for admission in social work disciplines and
courses; and
v) Finally, the financial and other
resources constraints is an important limiting factors in regard to development
of social work education in Bangladesh.
Keeping
in view of above all the realities, social worker have listed out some of the
problems and challenges related to professional social work education in
Bangladesh which need to be addressed collectively for improving the standards,
enhancing the recognition of the profession and developing literature in
consonance with the social context and work force requirements.
Public Recognition of Professional Social Work(er): Lack of public recognition of social work as a profession is
another critical shortcoming that has a lot to do with its future prospects in
Bangladesh.
Low Prevailing Level: The prevailing
level of Bangladeshi social services and welfare services is extremely low and
that most of the voluntary welfare agencies lack the necessary resources to
meet some of the basic human needs of common people.
Lack of Indigenous Materials or Literature: The major
shortcoming of social work education in Bangladesh is its inability to sufficiently
indigenize its knowledge-base. The basic teaching material with respect to interventionist
methods is still primarily American.
Missing of Fundamental Feature: The professionals alone have not yet acquired any dominant place
to shape and formulate social policies or to administer social welfare
organizations.
National Council for Social Work: We need to have national level council to maintain the uniform
standards of education and give accreditation to institutions as well to
practitioners.
Inbreeding in Several Institutions: Inbreeding that is appointing their own students within the
Departments due to political and other pressures.
Meager Salaries to Social Work Teachers: Low salary and job stagnation, high turn-over, easy burnouts are
some of the crucial issues that would be resolved if we are able to bring
standardization in the social work teaching, and practice and at the same time
portray a desirable and advantageous image of social work profession in the
country.
Social Work Educators are not Practitioners: When the educators, practitioners and students are talking about
social work as a profession like medicine, law, and engineering etc. the
professors of medical college or university practice their profession by
visiting wards of hospital along with the medical students, professors of
engineering college involve in practice and professors of law college also
practice their profession and update their knowledge levels, enhance their
competencies to deal with the issues. In social work, the holistic view on
teaching, practice and research is missing very much, majority Social Work
Educators are found to be comfortable in conventional classroom teaching and
rarely found in practice and research domains.
No activity for Continuous Professional Development (CPD): Most of
the education institute not doing anything for the Continuous Professional
Development (CPD) in the form of conducting Workshops, organizing Seminars,
doing research studies, conducting survey, begging field action projects from
funding organizations, taking students for study tours to out of the state.
Non-Professionals: social work
professionals can teach, guide and train the students of social work like
medicine students can only be trained by medical professors, law students only
can be capacitated by the law graduates likewise same will be applicable for
social work profession.
Developing Field (Service) Action Projects: The University Grants Commission (UGC) clearly mentioned in its
major of areas of concern for the development of social work education and
training in Bangladesh that is development of field and field service project
to provide learning opportunity to the students, growth opportunity to the
staff and service opportunity to the people. But the process of developing projects
and executing is missing a lot.
It is significant to note that despite
above mentioned limitations, social work is quite popular among students
because they find more employment not only with government development agencies
e.g. Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB), Department of Social Service
(DSS), Department of Women Development but also with NGO’s upon completion of
social work degrees.