Editor's Desk
"Social work is what social workers do": this is
the general understanding in our country. Doctors are taught to practice
medicine and are also required to practice it in accordance with codified rules
and ethics .So also are the engineers and the lawyers. This special issue "Social
Work and Social Workers" is brought out as a tribute to two senior
teachers and mentors, who taught many young aspirants the science and art of
social work practice, though the statutory framework for practice is yet to be
a reality in India.This issue contains professionally significant articles,autobiographical
narratives and biographical sketches.
B.Vijayalakhmi, a
distinguished Professor with many years of experience in teaching and practice
of social work, says that one of the hallmarks of a profession is the transfer
of knowledge and skills under supervisory guidance to its entrants in her
beautifully crafted article "Let Us Bring Back 'Field' to Fieldwork: An
Overview of the Current Scenario of the Fieldwork in Social Work Education In
India". She defines fieldwork in social work education as a process of
enabling the student to acquire skills, values and attitudes in the backdrop of
knowledge regarding a specific practice setting, with social work perspective. In
social work, the fieldwork supervisors are the initiators of the students into
the profession. The supervisors "with a through knowledge of and skill in
the use of social work methods, critical and up-to-date information on changing
socio-political trends, social policy and programmes for the needy emanate
confidence and become role models to the students and influence them to
inculcate the values of the profession and be critical thinkers. By hands on demonstration,
guidance and encouragement, and critical assessment, the supervisors enable the
students to imbibe the qualities of a professional and acquire the practice
skills". Vijayalakshmi forgets that this is a very tall order in the
current scenario as the reality is at great variance from the ideal in most
social work educational institutions in the country.
The fieldwork setting can be compared to a hospital where the medical students get training. But, unlike medicine, the field setting in social work is not attached to the college with certain exceptions like a child guidance clinic. And it is also not feasible to do so. The professional social workers in such settings like a welfare institution or a development agency are expected to be the "agency supervisors" of the students. But many organizations do not employ professional social workers and even when professional social workers are employed, they are too overworked to spare time for supervision. In many organizations, the students are made to do odd jobs as a relief to the social workers. In such situations, the faculty supervisors are required to take the additional responsibility to fill the void of the agency counterparts.
Vijayalakshmi
discusses a disturbing issue in the states like the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh
where the well-intentioned state support of reimbursement of fees is misused by
the college managements. In social work courses of most of the private colleges,
the students are attracted with the promise that they need not attend to
fieldwork and classroom attendance would be manipulated. Thus students from
such institutions are awarded degrees in social work without adequate class and
field instruction. Similarly, distance education programmes in social work
including those of IGNOU cannot do justice to the requirements of professional
social work education. Taking into consideration many aspects of the present
pattern of social work education, Vijayalakshmi asserts that half-baked
products bring down the excellence of professional social work which should not
be allowed any longer. A serious warning from a sincere Professor.
P.K. Visvesvaran, who has been
teaching social work for four decades, wants the government, the major fund giver
for social work education, to undertake an impact assessment study of sixty
years of social work education in Tamil nadu. He wants the study to examine
three aspects: Is the specialized education producing the expected and desired results?
Are the curricula relevant and valid in the present context? Are the trained
social workers putting up a reasonably good, if not an exemplary, performance?
Social work professionals J.M. Sampath
and Kalpana Sampath are one among the limited number of couples engaged as a
team of change agents and motivators in different settings. Between them, they
have made immense contribution to society in multiple ways besides bringing up
two highly talented and socially oriented children. "Hand in Hand heading
towards the Horizon-Personal and Professional Connect” by J.M. Sampath narrates
the challenges in their vision-driven life for the benefit of the young couples
who are contemplating similar life and work options as a team.
Social work begins at home, learnt in school, and expands in
life: says Kalpana Sampath in her article (Kannada) "Innovation in
Fulfilment of Social Work Profession”. She adds that education today has
compromised the need to develop strong individuals with values and clarity, who
feel responsible for society and themselves. The need of the hour is Life
Education and not merely life skills, according to Kalpana. Her article is
based on an experimental research with children between ten to sixteen years in
Bangalore city. The research is built on "Learning-Doing-Integrating” in
enabling children to experience deeper reflection process. The highlight is the
Social Action Project (SAP) that the children undertake in the tenth grade.
Rishi Ram Singh's
readiness to abide by the advice of his brother to join the MAS course at Kashi
Vidyapith in 1958 to "kill time" before getting the licence(degree )
for a job in a factory as Labour Officer has become a blessing for social work
education in India. His reminiscences, penned despite ill-health and hospitalization,
give a good insight into the making of a passionate social work educator. From
Udaipur School of Social Work in 1960 to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences
in 2000, his professional journey has been eventful, which continues even now
at the age of 75. Dr. P.T.Thomas, the first professionally qualified Director
of the Madras School of Social Work, was also the first social work-Principal
of Udaipur School of Social Work and Indore School of Social Work. R.R.Singh worked
with the autocratic, bureaucratic Dr.Thomas, who was very much interested in
Ornithology and English Literature, for fifteen years at both the schools of
social work. In 1975, Singh shifted his academic base to the Delhi School of
Social Work. He spent twenty five years at this democratically oriented ,
dissent-centric DSSW as Reader, Professor and Head (under the rotation system).
Dr. Singh describes humorously how the all powerful ET CETERA resolved amicably
the contentious project proposal for the UGC’s SAP assistance during his
headship tenure. By adding an "etc", DSSW got the grant of One Crore
Rupees from the UGC for three consecutive five-year periods under the SAP. He
was Director of TISS for a short period of about five years. On his retirement,
he was designated by the TISS governing body as Director Emeritus for a special
assignment. R.R. Singh gracefully declined to accept the designation and the
governing body retained him for one year as Professor Emeritus. Dr. Singh has a
long association with IGNOU in the University's initiatives in extending social
work education and practice in the North-East.
D. Umapathy's Kannada
article describes the inhuman working conditions of salt workers in Gujarat. M.
Basavanna's Lucifer Effect narrates the psychological trauma that a good man
undergoes when circumstances force him to opt the evil route.
National
Council of Professional Social Work in India Bill: Some Observations
Ever since the early years of the emergence of schools of social work in India, serious concerns were expressed by social work professionals and others actively engaged in social welfare in the country. The Indian Conference of Social Work (now, Indian Council of Social Welfare) was the first organization to propose the creation of a statutory body to regulate social work education in India in the late 1950s. Since then the Ministry of Social Welfare/Ministry of Welfare, two UGC review committees on social work education, and organizations like the Association of Schools of Social Work in India were demanding the establishment of a regulatory council. Finally a draft bill was formulated in the early 1990s and that was referred to the Ministry of Education, which in turn, referred the same to the UGC for its opinion. The UGC did not favour a council for social work education as it was of the view that the UGC itself was competent to regulate education in social work as per the UGC Act. Subsequently the UGC itself reversed its earlier opinion and finally the draft bill was sent to the Department of Higher Education (MHRD) for clearance. For the past two decades the draft bill has been gathering dust at the MHRD. In between hopes were created in the social work circles at Delhi and Mumbai regarding the enactment of the bill by the Parliament and no tangible result could be seen. In March 2008, the Delhi School of Social Work organized a national consultation on the bill. The draft National Council of Professional Social Work in India Bill is appended in this issue of Social Work - Foot Prints for wider dissemination and debate .
The draft bill is
aimed at creating a Council of Professional Social Work. Medical Council of
India, Bar Council of India, and similar regulatory councils do not have the
prefix professional. Rather Professional Medical Council, Professional Bar
Council, etc appear strange and amusing. So why does social work need the
prefix professional? Is there still ambivalence among social work professionals
as to the self-sufficiency of social work? Like the Council on Social Work
Education in the US, the draft bill ought to have been independent of the
adjective professional. The bill defines professional social work as a form of
practice which follows established and acknowledged methods of social work
carried out by professional social workers. While the "established and
acknowledged methods” are wide open to interpretation, the definition implies
that professional social work is what professional social workers, with BSW or MSW
do. A confusing explanation! The bill defines a social work teacher as one who
teaches or engaged in research, while a social work practitioner is one who is
engaged in social work practice and/or administration. Further, a social work
researcher is one engaged in full time research in social work. An unnecessary
and unwelcome compartmentalization of a social work professional. If the
architects of the bill substitute social work with any other profession the
contradictions will be apparent. The bill can help itself well without trying
to bring in paraprofessionals into its fold.
The composition of
the Council is educator-centered with the chairperson, vice-chairperson, member-secretary
and at least eight members belonging to the category "social work educator"
out of twenty eight in the Council, Social work practitioners are fewer in number.
Strangely, the Council will have two representatives of the recently formed
National Association of Professional Social Workers in India (NAPSWI). This
Delhi-based association with 1,200 members in June 20013 (New Indian Express)
has been treated National, while there are professional social work associations
in Chennai, Bangalore, Kerala, and possibly in other states too, in addition to
the Indian Society of Professional Social Work, which has been functioning for
the past many years.
There is a provision for a national
register of social work professionals, a compulsory requirement for teaching
and practice. A fair provision. The functions of the Council are exhaustive.
The Council, as the statement specifies, shall take all steps for the promotion,
maintenance, co-ordination of standards of education, training, research and practice.
A vast range of issues to be covered! In many countries like the US, there is a
council for social work education and a national association of social work professionals.
In India too professions like medicine, law, nursing, and engineering have similar
organizational arrangements. Social work, somehow, is out of sync with other
professions. Anyhow, there is a draft bill before us to hope for a law one day.
Let us wait.
T.K.Nair
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