INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Gabriel Chong13

Malaya declared its independence from its British Colonial ruler on August 31, 1957 and became Malaysia six years later with the inclusion of Singapore (which became independent in 1965), Sabah and Sarawak. In the last several years it has exploded onto the international scene as a country to be recognised. Led by a dynamic Prime Minister with an aggressive plan for Malaysia to achieve the status of an industrialized country by the year 2020, the country has gone from a primarily agrarian society to one of the fastest growing and most economically successful countries in Asia.

Malaysia has a population estimated at just over 20.56 million in 1996, spread over a land area of 330,434 sq. km. It is a multiracial society with the majority being Bumiputras. Bumiputra literally means sons of the soil and is comprised of Malays and indigenous people such as the Ibans, Bidayuhs and Kadazans. Together, this group makes up 56% of the population. Chinese and Indians comprise 26% and 8% respectively. Islam is the national religion, though other religions are allowed to be freely practiced. It is governed by a coalition of component parties, with the Malay UMNO party in control of the coalition. Opposition parties exist but have little influence or impact. The ruling coalition has not lost its two thirds majority since Independence. This multiethnic coalition has been the political answer to maintaining racial harmony since the race riots of October 13, 1969.

For eight uninterrupted years, the economy has grown at 8% per annum. Malaysias current annual per capita GDP is estimated at USD2076,1 with a projected annual growth rate of 5.5% to the year 2000. Mean monthly income between 1990-1995 grew at a rate of 9.5% from USD416 to USD716 (Malaysia, 1996). Programmes targeted at reducing the number of people living in poverty have been aggressively introduced and have shown successful results. The poverty rate has rapidly declined since Independence from 16.5% in 1957 to 8.9% for 1990-1995. Poverty eradication efforts have come in the form of positive discrimination and

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income-generating agricultural projects aimed at the rural poor. However, critics charge that these programmes, deliberately targeting poor Bumiputras to address structural racial inequalities, have neglected poverty among the Chinese and Indians (Featured Article, 1989). Today, the policy of income redistribution among the races has been substantially achieved.2 However, the disparity between the ratio of haves and have nots has become greater. A study by the United Nations Development Programme indicated that Malaysia has the largest disparity between the rich and the poor among Asian countries.

The country has embarked on several development agendas closely linked to social work. Vision 2020 is the Prime Ministers master plan to propel Malaysia into becoming an internationally recognised industrialized nation and a caring society. According to this plan, the development of Malaysia into an industrialized country will be holistic, taking into account the development of strong moral and ethical values: the strengthening of a democratic society that is liberal, tolerant, civic, caring, economically just and equitable. The New Development Policy (NDP) which is the governments plan for 1990-2000, seeks to build upon poverty eradication and the restructuring of society by correcting the remaining racial economic imbalances through generating income and creating wealth among the Bumiputras.

Malaysia hopes to develop into a Caring Society by developing a caring attitude amongst its citizens towards the less fortunate and to minimize the negative consequences of industrialization. Though expounded by politicians, this theme has been more political rhetoric than substance. The existence of professionals in developing effective caring services and programmes in a variety of sectors, such as for people in drug rehabilitation, people living with AIDS, children and adults with special needs and the elderly, are still very much wanting. The role of the family is greatly emphasized, yet infrastructural support by government to family is minimal. Disparities in the allocation of the federal budget is reflected by Jaysooria (1992) who cited the work of Sushama (1985) to affirm this point. Between 1974-1984, although the allocation of the federal budget increased three-fold, it still only accounted for 0.23% of the total federal budget.

Though social work has been practiced in Malaysia since colonial days, the profession has yet to gain recognition or status. The term social worker is still used loosely in the community to apply to anyone who spends time doing charitable work for those who are considered

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marginalised in profession terms, or less fortunate by the public. Ismail Baba (1995) summarizes the history of the profession as starting from 1912, when a special department was created to attend to the well being of migrant laborers. Abandoned in the 1930s, this department was resurrected again in 1937 as the Social Service Department within the Colonial Office. The Department of Social Welfare was established in 1946, and later became the Ministry of Social Welfare in 1964. The Ministry of Health also developed medical social workers as early as 1952.

Currently there are three universities in Malaysia offering Bachelors in Social Sciences with specialization in social work. The oldest, and the only one which is accredited by the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), is Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) located in Penang. It was first established in 1975 and was originally known as the Department of Social Development and Administration. The other universities started offering social work courses much later. Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) established its programme in 1993 and had its first graduating class of 12 in August, 1997. Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) has just started its programme in 1998 with an enrolment of 60 students, the majority of which are probation officers. Two other universities in the country are in the planning stages of offering social work programmes.

The government is the largest employer of social workers. However, funding and proper training for human resources development have not kept up with the needs of the profession and society. Between 1976-1977, almost 70% of welfare personnel were not fully trained in social work. A more recent assessment of the situation indicates that only 50% of professional and 20% of semi-professional staff have had any formal social work or human development based training. A vicious circle therefore exists. As social workers are perceived as bureaucrats having minimal effective impact on social problems, there is no momentum to increase their numbers and quality. The professionals within the government sector are left to grapple with tasks beyond their resources. In Jeshuruns review, there were 125 managers and 295 semiprofessional staff covering a population of 18.2 million in Peninsular Malaysia, and 2.4 million in Sabah and Sarawak where only a few federal staff are employed to augment state employees (Malaysia, 1996). It is therefore not surprising that this has caused an image crisis for the social work profession, which has stunted its development in Malaysia.

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), which are comparable

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to nonprofit groups in the United States, play a very important role in providing services to marginalised communities. NGOs are divided into basically two groups in Malaysia, service provision groups and social justice/advocate groups. Though we are moving towards a new century, NGOs involved in social work provision in Malaysia continue to operate with an institutional and charity mindset. The number of trained social workers in NGOs is unknown, but it is quite certain to be low. The low remuneration and minimal or no benefits, are major barriers for NGOs to attract trained social workers to this important area.

Social workers, who are also referred to as welfare officers, are seen as people who give money and material goods to the poor, aged, disabled and marginalised groups. Unlike social workers in developed countries, in Malaysia social workers have rarely led the way in addressing policy issues or social problems despite the renaming of the Ministry of Welfare to the Ministry of Social Development and National Unity. This can be partly due to four factors:

The Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW) was established in 1973, but was not registered as an organisation till March 28, 1974. It is an affiliated member of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) but it has not been active in advocating for more humane, progressive legislation and agendas. The direction of the professional association is also very unclear.

There is a small number of professional social workers in the country. Currently, the Malaysian Association of Social Workers has only about 60 members scattered across the country. It is therefore not surprising that its activities are limited.

There is a lack of transparency within the Malaysian political system. This prevents people from being part of the democratic process. An example is the current effort to privatize health care in Malaysia: the Malaysian Medical Association, despite its size and status, has not been able to access any of the consultative reports, estimated to be at least 5 in number, that were written for the government, despite repeated requests.

Culturally and politically, a social action agenda is not the traditional Malaysian way of addressing issues, especially contentious ones. Dialogue behind closed doors is the norm which accounts in part for the lack of transparency. To play an effective role in such dialogues, social workers need more professional credibility and public recognition.

Given the large number of untrained social workers, as noted by Siti and Jeshurun earlier, it is imperative that social work education in

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Malaysia includes current workers in the field. In the current thrust of Malaysia's development, IT is a tool that can play a significant role.

In Malaysia, IT has been identified as the key ingredient needed to propel the country into the status of a developed nation by the year 2020. Currently ranked 35th in a new information society index of 55 countries by the International Data Corporation, the country is considered less developed as a technology center compared to its regional neighbors such as Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Korea.

The 7th Malaysia Plan intends to overcome this low standing by developing an IT infrastructure in order to create a strong foundation for building a knowledge-based industrial economy and information-rich society. The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project, launched August 1, 1996, is a key part of that solution. A US$15 billion megavision project of the Prime Minister, it will be located 15 miles south of Kuala Lumpur and will be spread over a 290-square-mile area, larger than the size of Singapore. Dubbed the Asian Silicon Valley, the area will not only boast a 2.5-10 gigabit digital optical fiber backbone, but will be in the vicinity of the new administrative center of Malaysia, Putrajaya, a new international airport and an attractive living environment. Other areas that will be incorporated into the Multimedia Super Corridor are telemedicine and smart schools. Computer giant Microsoft has promised to locate its Asia Headquarters in this area. The advisory board of the Multimedia Super Corridor consists of a Whos Who in the computer industry world, including Presidents and CEOs from Microsoft, Netscape, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

The creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia will be an invaluable resource for social work to tap into. I will mention four specific types of IT development that could be adapted for the enhancement of social work education in Malaysia.

Currently, computers are not used in the teaching of social work skills. The existing training system in the Ministry is designed to provide all new social work staff with a four week induction training programme at their training center. As individuals hired as social workers come from various fields, this training encompasses Human Development, basic social work and welfare services. Specialized training courses, lasting up to 10 days, are conducted at a later stage as new staff are assigned to their respective departments. This training includes child care, probation services, child abuse, and domestic violence. This training is insufficient to develop staff who are comfortable with and knowledgeable about the how

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to skills. Computer training software, if introduced during training courses, could help social workers to develop their how to skills during both formal training sessions and private study.

There is an opportunity for the social work profession to work together with software designers to construct learning by doing software, such as those developed by Robert Schank and his Learning Sciences Corporation (LSC). LSC designs and develops scenarios that allow a user to self learn through guided simulations. Schanks approach asks what should students know how to do? and then develops software packages towards that end.

For example, one of LSCs biology simulations is called disease outbreak. This allows students to uncover the source of a mysterious outbreak by conducting interviews of patients in a hospital, the relatives of dead victims, conducting a press interview, and writing a press statement. On top of handling the case, the students learn about laws, interpersonal skills, decision making and risk taking. People who have experienced such a situation also give their views at critical points of the simulation. Another example is the Sickle Cell Counselor designed for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago which allows museum visitors to role play a genetic counselor giving advise to a couple about the risks of passing on the sickle cell to their offspring. Visitors can question experts who appear on the screen and give pros and cons to their advice.

For social work, a programme simulating a child abuse or domestic violence case can be developed at the current stage of technology development. A simulation programme with multiple layers of difficulties and objectives can provide new staff with many possible scenarios that they may face. To further develop a sense of professionalism rather than just doing a job, the values, principles and ethics behind the profession need to be part of this training simulation. With the current shortage of skilled staff in the department, such simulations may be cost effective and efficient. Such packages, possibly available in the western developed markets, will need to be adapted to the Malaysian scenario. An example of adaptation will be to Malaysia's dual legal system. People of the Islamic faith are under the jurisdiction of civil and religious courts. The political, cultural and resource differences are other variables that need to be taken into account when developing such a programme.

These simulation packages can also be incorporated into distance learning programmes. Distance education in Malaysia is set to expand during the Seventh Malaysian Plan covering the years 1996-2000.

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Currently, no social work programme offers distance education packages. However, with the severe shortage of trained social workers and the need for upgrading of skills and knowledge, there is a potential market for simulation packages. This is particularly true as many of those currently in the field have limited relevant training and cannot be released for full time courses because this would accentuate already chronic staff shortages. IT can play a role in helping to access distance learning packages that are currently at an early stage of planning.

Telemedicine, which is a part of the Multimedia Super Corridor, is a concept that can be duplicated in social work. The philosophy behind the concept of telemedicine is to use IT as a tool for medical and health services. Rural hospitals can be connected to medical specialists in urban settings who will assist in diagnosis and in surgical intervention. This is to help ease the shortage of medical doctors in rural areas. The doctor to population ratio in certain rural areas is as high as 1:4,000, significantly higher than the national average of 1:2,100.

Following on the philosophy of telemedicine, something like telesocial work could be developed to help practitioners in the field with complicated cases that need a trained social worker to assist in the intervention. The pressures of working on complicated cases makes immediate access to resources or professional assistance attractive to workers in the field and therefore they are more likely to take advantage of such technology where available. Telesocial work would allow a professional, using real time video links and multimedia, to assist in the intervention of a case and at the same time help develop the skills and confidence of the field social worker. Telesocial work would also allow social workers in the field to access a database of social workers and their area of expertise for assistance. Resource materials, for example journals for self learning and past case histories for references, could be obtained and organisations that may be helpful to a specific case could be contacted. Telesocial work could be incorporated into the governments aim to become a paperless government by the year 2000. This would also provide continuous training and upgrading of field practitioner skills and consequently the profession as a whole. The ratio of government and NGO social workers to the general population is not available, but can be safely assumed to be lower than that of doctors, thus it is more crucial that this new approach is extended to the social work field.

The telesocial work concept can also be extended internationally so that trained social workers in Malaysia can access appropriate expertise

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outside the country, adapt the knowledge to the local context and, through the exchange of views, broaden the knowledge base of both parties. However, another more pressing need is for international exchange for Malaysian students.

Social work, being still relatively undeveloped in Malaysia, has been a difficult profession for university students to grasp. There is no general knowledge of the profession to draw upon and no role models in the community to help the student identify what a social worker is, the workers role, the professions history, values, essential skills and knowledge. Without such a background, it is difficult to inculcate social work values and principles into young students. Information technology and the borderless world provide students with a potential arena to discover the ethos of the profession. IT allows students to visit webpages and social work cafes to read about social work, to email other people around the world and be involved in discussion, and use listservs such as the National Institute of Social Work (NISW). These sources provide knowledge, an exchange of ideas and, more importantly, the discovery of values that lie behind the social work profession. Of course, social work values need to be culturally sensitive. In exchanging ideas with professionals and students in neighboring countries, social work students in Malaysia may learn solutions to problems that are more applicable than those of industrialized countries. Less developed countries may share a similar stage of development in social services or hold similar cultural and value systems that can be drawn upon. Also, industrialized countries can benefit from approaches devised in developing countries where innovative approaches are developed in light of limited resources.

For educators, IT has brought access to abundant resources that can be tapped into by pressing the send button. When I first started teaching, I discovered the NISW listgroup and got answers to every question I sent out. I also used the NISW listserv to get comments and statements from social workers all over the world about what social work meant to them or what they did as a social worker in their country. These statements were then used as part of an exhibition to expose students to the breadth and depth of social work.

Text and resource books across subjects are sometimes limited in Malaysia. Access to books relating to social work are even more limited and very expensive to buy. At my new university, our bookstore has yet to open. Students very rarely buy books and mostly depend on photocopying or handouts from lecturers. The scope and variety of academic journals are

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limited. Access to the Internet is a great resource for students to gain valuable information which they may not otherwise have access to. These include documents, data and general information.

The combination of IT and social work in Malaysia could be an ideal marriage. The use of IT can enhance the social work profession, while social work can help widen the application of IT. However, there are barriers and challenges that need to be overcome. Many of these issues lie beyond the realm of social work, as they arise from government policies, past and present, that have affected education in Malaysia.

The socioeconomic awakening of Asia has seen countries in the region playing catch up with the West. The installation of telecommunication infrastructures, increase in PC and IT literacy, and the drive to develop and adopt cutting edge technology to reduce the technology gap has made Asia the fastest growing IT market in the world. Malaysia was recently ranked the sixth most wired country in Asia, after Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan. Although, compared to America, there are still vast disparities.

The desire for Malaysia to be an industrialized country has made it necessary to leap frog from being a primarily agrarian society to an IT society. IT literacy, however, has not kept up with the quantum leap of development. In a recent study by the National Library of Malaysia on 22,000 people, only 20% of those 15-24 years old were computer literate, the highest of all age brackets. In age brackets from 25-55, the figure was no more than 10%. To increase IT literacy, the government plans to develop smart schools in conjunction with the MSC. It can therefore be assumed that many people working in the social work field are not IT literate.

If programmes such as telesocial work are targeted to people working with marginalized communities, accessibility will be an issue due to the lack of access of supporting IT infrastructures, such as phone lines, electricity and proper maintenance. With pockets of areas unable to access such programmes, a disparity between areas served by trained and non trained personnel will be created. The scale of these constraining factors are evident from the following statistics:

•only 17 per 100 people in Malaysia have access to phone lines, compared to 63 for the US,

•just 56% of schools in Sarawak, the state where UNIMAS, a leading IT university, is based, have electricity.

Another practical point when thinking of IT use in social work

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education is accessibility to computer hardware by students. In Malaysia, the ratio is 3.2 computers per 100 people compared to 21.2 computers per 100 people in the United States. This will have implications for distance learning programmes. At the university, few students have access to their own personal computers and those that do usually do not have Internet access. Internet in Malaysia costs approximately US$20-US$40 per month, compared to US$15-US$23 in the United States. Students access the Internet by booking time slots in the universitys libraries or computer labs. As the semester progresses, time slots for computer usage become more limited as the demand increases.

English is the second language used in Malaysia, the national language being Malay. Goh (1997) relates how the rise in nationalistic spirit and the importance of national unity influenced the rise of Malay as the main medium in schools. Since the 1970s, educational policy dictates that, in all government schools, Malay is used for all subjects except English classes. Simultaneously, there have been sustained efforts to develop the Malay language and to increase publications in the national language. However, part of globalization and the IT revolution is that the mastering of the old colonial language is necessary if Malaysians are to excel globally in academic studies or international business. In recognition of this reality, the government now emphasizes bi-lingualism. However, the inheritance of past policies has meant that a substantial student population struggles to read and comprehend English text and lacks confidence in expressing themselves in English. UNIMAS is one of the few universities which insists that students take generic courses which include IT and English. As the Internet is heavily English based, the lack of language skills can cause difficulties in fully utilizing search engines.

The Malaysian education system has long been criticized within the country as one that does not adequately encourage critical and creative thinking. The practice of spoon-feeding information and subsequent regurgitation of facts during examinations begins at the primary level and continues through to university level. Memorization and conformity to the right answers, including values, are part and parcel of schooling. Although the authorities are trying to change this approach, these issues are still evident. With IT, an evolution of the university needs to occur as students need to absorb more information, synthesize and be more critical of the body of knowledge they will be exposed to. IT also places Malaysian education and society in a paradox. IT has opened up access to information in a society that has traditionally followed an autocratic style of leadership.

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It will be interesting to see how this sense of open access to information will affect society and vice versa.

The IT skill level of social work educators is another barrier to maximizing the potentials of IT in teaching social work. Computers are used by social work educators for primarily word processing, email and Internet access. Many see little correlation between the use of computers, ITs potential for developing a more enriching social work curriculum for students, the further evolution of the profession. A very poignant example of the level of IT comfort was when I sent a questionnaire as an attached document to a lecturer at another university to distribute to her colleagues. Instead of forwarding the attachment, she printed, photocopied and placed it in their pigeon holes. An email that followed further confirmed the level of IT knowledge and attitude.

It stated do you still want your questionnaires back? I can tell you frankly, there is nothing in them. My colleagues felt that it is not relevant to them as they dont use IT in the program.

The commitment of the Malaysian government to be a major global IT player provides social workers with an opportunity that has yet to be recognised by social work educators in Malaysia. With such a strong mantra on information technology in Malaysia, there is abundant technical expertise available to develop interactive and simulation programmes that can further enrich the quality of education of future social workers. The current lack of professionally trained social workers also allows room for IT to be used in a continuous self learning approach. Here, I would like to make it clear that IT should only complement and enhance, rather than replace, the need for interpersonal learning in a field which has interpersonal relationships at its core.

On another level, if the profession can capitalize on this medium, IT can be used as a catalyst to improve and enhance the credibility and status of social work in Malaysia. With the profession currently holding low status in the country, the embracing of IT in a very technologically driven society allows the profession, by association, to increase its position and to have a medium in common with leading policy makers in society. Through this commonality, the profession of social work, its importance and its important role in society can be further established.

The teaching of social work in Malaysia is complicated with the underdeveloped state of the profession in the country and the limited access to materials. Alternative methods and approaches need to be utilized to overcome these inequities. The desperate need to train current field workers

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to deal with increasingly complex issues and situations makes it necessary to use whatever means are available to enhance their skills. In the Malaysian context, where the government is deeply committed to funding IT development and usage, social work educators must see IT as an additional tool to assist in the development of future social workers. We cannot allow ourselves to miss an opportunity that has so much potential, but one that has yet to be recognised by the profession.

Since the writing of this paper, Malaysia and neighboring countries have suffered a major economic and currency crisis. At its lowest level, the Malaysian stock market lost 50% of its values and the ringgit depreciated 45% of its value against the dollar. Projected growth rates for the country are now below the initial projections of 7%, to between 4% and 5%.

As a consequence of the economic crisis, the government has implemented a 21% cut in budgets for all agencies and frozen the hiring of new staff. Several national projects have been placed on hold; however, the Multimedia Super Corridor project is ahead of schedule. Those who have been hardest hit are people who speculated on the stock market and property sectors. Rises in food prices across the board has affected all Malaysians who now have to pay higher prices for basic household products and goods. Pay cuts as high as 30% have been implemented in several sectors. The Government claims that the country still has full employment as there are jobs available in manufacturing and plantation sectors.

The implication of the current crisis on information technology and social work has yet to be seen. However, it can be assumed that with the major cuts in government budgets, new programmes will not be implemented while the focus would be on maintaining and maximizing existing programmes. Cuts in budgets of healthcare and social services would affect the poor and vulnerable at a time when such services will be needed most. Though basic services will remain, the focus on IT and staff development in the field of social services will be scaled back as finances are channeled to other areas. The purchase of computers and other high ticket items would be put on hold for schools and families as they concentrate their resources on meeting basic needs. This would widen the information access gap between those who can and those who cannot afford the necessary technology.

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SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION IN INDIA: PERCEPTIONS OF

SOCIAL WORKERS IN BOMBAY

Farida Kassim14

Background. In the earlier half of this century professional social work was transferred from the developed world to developing countries. Much of this technology transfer was based on the belief that social work had a universally relevant methodology and an international professional identity. In fact, Midgely (1981) claimed that this was a sort of professional imperialism that western social workers imposed on their Third World colleagues.

However, this technology transfer was not just the work of western social work educators but also of students and educators from developing countries who were trained in the West. Even though students from schools of social work still come to study in the West, they, as well as their western colleagues and educators are in debate today about the merit and worth of such education and its transferability. It is acknowledged that in spite of the fact that traditionalism in many developing countries has been eroded by colonialism, modernization, industrialization and the spread of western education and technology, yet the lives of millions of people in those countries are still influenced by traditional customs and beliefs.

The ramifications of transferring western social work technology are many. Roan (1980) found that students in Taiwan have been struggling to fit their social work activities into the western theories they had been taught. She believed that this was perhaps the real base of conflict and confusion in issues of social work practice in countries like Taiwan and India. Similarly, DeJongh (1969) dealt with problems of western social work in the Afro-Asian world. Too often the main emphasis is on what western ideas can teach the variant culture.

Mukundarao (1969) took the above arguments into the Indian setting. He believed that Indian social work has functioned in a vacuum of unreality. He went to the extent of saying that social work education is often ignorant of prevailing conditions and needs of local communities. He cited the example of students learning about social work administration – about the various intricate operations of social agencies which are very

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different in the East. To uphold similar sentiments, Aptekar (1967), criticized that the inputs of the knowledge base of social work as a profession have been from the western world rather than the eastern.

It is not as if solutions to the above problems have not been undertaken. India is among those developing countries that are taking a critical look at their educational system with a view to reforming goals, where need be. On the one hand, we have some Latin American educators who believe that western social work education is totally unsuited for developing countries and that a micro-systems orientation is irrelevant in the face of macro-developmental needs and challenges. However, most developing countries in Asia today still follow a micro-systems model of education. In India, though the overall trend, may be microsystems oriented, yet there are professional schools of social work which have changed their approach to a more generic one. The aim has been that whatever be the approach taken (either a microspecialization oriented or a more generic and integrated approach) the emphasis ideally should be on indigenizing social work. In fact, the purpose of this article is not to go into the micro versus macro debate in developing countries but is limited to understand how social workers in Bombay, India view the relevance of the current educational system to practice and how they use a presumably western educational model in a non-western culture.

A general awareness on the whole issue of indigenization in India has led to indigenous case materials being developed by faculty and staff at the schools of social work. However, there is a large body of literature which is unpublished and which students use as guides in their practice. Since much of this literature is unpublished, the local reading materials comprise a small proportion of the reading lists at the Indian Schools. What stands out therefore, in these reading lists are names like Perlman, Hollis, Biestek and others and the belief that social work education in India has its roots in western models and that much remains to be done to indigenize it further.

Research questions. Our research questions are concerned with the following kinds of issues. How far are social work students and practitioners in India torn by the conflict between a western-based education in an eastern culture? How do social workers value the education they receive? Is it possible to translate western theory to suit Indian practice? How far do workers believe that theory and practice are consonant with each other? These are some of the questions that we were concerned with in our study. So far, studies on the nature of social work

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education have been the product of scholars who have examined the education from their own study and analysis. Our research was different in that it took the debate on the westernization of education to the heart of the practice community – to social work practitioners and students. The questions that we asked were part of a larger study which examined the nature of casework practice in Bombay, India and the effects of culture on practice. Therefore, our respondents were limited to social workers who had casework experience with adult clients. The results of the study cannot be generalized to workers from other places and to those who have a more community-based practice.

Methods. Twenty-six social workers (the term, refers to both students and practitioners unless a distinction is made between the two groups), or twelve students and fourteen practitioners from Bombay, India participated in a qualitative study. The students were randomly selected from two schools of social work in Bombay by means of lists of students who had casework experience with adult clients. All students were in their final semester of completing their Masters education. Eight students were selected from the school with the micro-systems orientation and four students were selected from the school with an emphasis on integrated practice. This was because the latter school had fewer students with casework experience. All practitioners were selected arbitrarily from agencies offering direct practice services to adult clients. Most agencies in Bombay with Masters degreed social workers were selected, like family service agencies, neighbourhood houses, shelter homes for women in distress, marital counselling agencies and, in addition, industrial social workers participated in the study.

Respondents filled in a structured questionnaire (basically on demographic information) and were also interviewed by means of an openended interview guide, using case studies.

Findings

Regard for social work education. Overall, workers had a very high regard for their education. Virtually all the workers (excepting one) believed that they had learned mostly good things from their education, both personally and professionally. The personal gains seem to far outweigh the professional gains by almost a three to one ratio. Workers learned the humane principles of acceptance, understanding and tolerance (cited by fourteen workers) as well as a broadened vision (eight workers). Other qualities accruing from their education were empathy, maturity and humanitarianism (how the poor and the underprivileged lived). In fact, the

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professional gains that workers mentioned like learning organizational skills, methods of problem-solving, etc., seemed insignificant compared to the personal gains they acquired. Only one worker said that she had learned the futility of case work.

The westernization of education. Initially workers found this question difficult to discuss. Many of them felt addition, a lot of contradictions and ambivalent attitudes were present when they discussed their views. Roughly, the workers can be divided into three categories. The largest group were the compromisers – twelve workers who believed that though much of the literature used was largely western, the overall education was not westernized. The education could be adapted, much in the same vein as theory can be adapted to practice. Students claimed a lot depended on ones field work experience, the supervisor, the professor, etc. Students used role plays in the classroom, their teachers consciously pointed out East-West differences and their field placement made all the difference. Practitioners believed that time, experience and motivation were important factors in adaptability.

The keynote for the above workers revolved around the two basic concepts of compromise and adaptation. An interesting example was given by a worker who is involved with working with suicidal and depressed clients: overall I wouldnt say that its [education] westernized. We often had to adapt to situations. For instance when I joined – I thought things were set up too idealistically. The administration expected depressed clients to phone us up. Nobody here [in India] would make a telephone call to say – Im lonely and depressed and I want to commit suicide. We [in India] dont suffer from loneliness as in the West. Moreover, we dont have a phone in every home. In my house Ive applied for a phone for the last nine years and I havent got one even now! Who has the money to make a phone call from outside? It costs one or two rupees! So, we began by keeping our doors open and see how our practice has picked up [by word of mouth]… We collect our funds from charity shows and drives. A lot of our professional time is spent on that. We also have to do the administration. We dont have administrative staff because of a lack of funds. So I read income-tax laws and file our accounts. I dont know if in the West one worker would have to do so many things.

Another interesting comment brought up by some workers was that India itself was too culturally, religiously and economically diverse to be able to have just one model of practice and call it Indian. It did not matter if one learned from an American model or not, because it all had to

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be adapted to suit varying cultural demands/ needs. This is what made rural versus urban social work projects in India so vastly different in their goals. Workers cited examples from their own practice. They talked of how they dealt with the beliefs of their poorer and uneducated clients, which differed from their own; of how they handled fatalistic beliefs in clients; of how they dealt with traditional beliefs on mental health and faith healing and how they handled family conflicts based on culturally acceptable ideas. For example, when discussing a mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law conflict with the son/husband caught in the middle of the extended family system, workers offered a universal kind of pragmatic, scientific, problem-solving approach (by counselling the individual members in the family alone and then by doing some family therapy). However, the one crucial factor that was evident in their approaches was that they tried to keep the extended family living together. Therefore, the methods and the techniques used could represent social work practice in any country of the world but what seems to be different is that the techniques used are directed at maintaining the traditional elements in society. In fact, none of the workers mentioned the word divorce and hardly anybody advocated the choice of breaking up the family to provide individual happiness over sustaining peace in the family. The aim was to work with the individuals and the family to keep them together.

In fact, most of the workers demonstrated this remarkable sense of adaptability and of maintaining the existing systems in their clients lives. The following example illustrates such a position: I think that India is too culturally diverse. In India casework depends on a person's religious and cultural background. I do different kinds of counselling with Hindus, Muslims, Parsees and Goans. If a daughter-in-law comes to me with a mother- in-law problem, I have to advise a Hindu daughter-in-law differently from a Goan daughter-in-law. You know how conservative some Muslims can be. I have to help a Muslim daughter-in-law adjust to her family but this might vary with a Parsee or a Goan. It all depends on the situation and the background.

Four workers strongly upheld the view that the education was very much in tune with the Indian situation. Integrated methods of social work, the faculty, the fieldwork experience, made it highly geared to the culture and lifestyle of Indian people. Of these four workers, three were students belonging to the school with an integrated approach to practice. Common reasons for such a stance was that the education was geared to the culture we live in and to our livestyle and the relevance of integrated methods.

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To contradict this stance was a group of eight workers who emphasized that the literature was too westernized: that certain models like (RET, ТА, psychoanalysis, psychodrama) were inapplicable and that the cultural climate in India was alien to the West. Another two workers said that they could not really answer this question. Some workers were more concerned with social and economic change. They believed that a macrosystems orientation was more relevant to the Indian situation since Indian problems revolved around basic human needs, community development, better living conditions, water supply, sanitation, housing and once these basic needs were satisfied, then educators could talk about abstract thinking like casework and personal growth.

What seemed to be at the heart of this westernization of education debate among the workers in our study, was the fact that culture was at the centre of their arguments (both for and against the motion). Those claiming that the education was too westernized, did so because they proclaimed its dissonance with the culture. On the other hand, even those that recognized the relevance of western literature/ education did so in relation to how it could be translated into Indian terms.

Relation of theory to practice in social work. The major criticism by workers was directed at the inconsonance between theory and practice. We do not know whether this theory versus practice difference is another variant of the westernization of education argument. Some of the criticism directed by workers were culture based; others were more general. Therefore, we took this issue at its face value.

There was a perfect split between workers over this issue of the relation of theory to practice. No significant differences seemed apparent between students and practitioners. Ironically both groups of social workers alike brought up the same issues but from two polarized points of view. Both seemed to state that the theory was idealistic, sometimes alien, rigid, that it ignored ones personal reaction in a situation, that it was westernized, culturally different, unsuited to the economic conditions of people and that it was professionally undermined and underrated by other professionals.

Those that held that the theory was different from practice, brought up these issues to highlight the differences and to criticize the educational system. Those that said that the theory was not that different from practice, did so by acknowledging that even though the theory was different, it could be translated into practice (Indian?) terms. They believed that it was just a difference between the real world and the ideal world and that the

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classroom could not be transposed into the agency/practical world, without making adjustments.

Some of the sentiments expressed by workers who believed that theory was different from practice, were that the literature had to be adapted too much to fit in with the real world of practice; that books on management and administration were unreal for the Indian situation and that the theory was too idealistic.

The other 50 percent of workers believed that what was learnt in the classroom were just guidelines which equipped one to practice in the real world. In fact, they praised an educational system which taught one to bridge these gaps. The keynote to successful practice was experience which helped one to modify theory according to the culture, food habits and beliefs of the people.

A difference of opinion was noticeable within the student population in our study. Five out of the eight students who were from the school with the micro-systems orientation thought that theory was different from practice and were highly critical of the difference. On the other hand, only one of the four students from the school with the integrated approach felt that way. Rather than draw any conclusions from such findings, we need to look more closely at whether the different orientations of the two schools have to do with such sentiments.

Continuing education. All workers considered that they could better themselves professionally. Learning more about counselling, the latest techniques and models, were most frequently cited (by eleven workers). Employees as well as students expressed this desire. The wish was more apparent among students belonging to the school with the integrated approach to practice. Some students from the school emphasizing specializations wanted to learn more about generic social work. It seemed that for both groups, the grass was definitely greener on the other side of the fence.

The employees also wished they could have short-term refresher courses, one day seminars and the like, of a practical rather than a theoretical nature.

Ironically, none of the respondents wanted more indigenous education, research conducted in the area and seminars held to transmit such knowledge to practitioners.

Discussion. Overall, even though workers were critical of the education they had received, they seemed to respect it and to have learned many valuable things from it. They found that they had personally grown

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from the education they had received. They learned the valuable principles of empathy and tolerance. It almost seems that the list of qualities that workers mentioned as stemming from their education, were the qualities that helped them to handle difficult and conflicting belief systems in living and in practice. The personal gains, perhaps, can be perceived as being professional gains in a larger context. They seemed to translate these principles to their practice with the result that they placed a value on their profession, and to have the desire to adapt it to meet cultural needs and definitions. This seems to be one of the biggest surprises that emerged from our data. We had expected that the majority of workers would be complaining that their education was too westernized and culturally unsuited to meet the needs of their clients. Instead, half the workers complained about the essential gap between theory and practice with only less than a third of the respondents troubled because they thought that the theory was too westernized.

Is this division between theory and practice only an Indian phenomenon? Maybe, part of it is a variant of the westernization of education argument. On the other hand, is the fact that social workers the world over seem to be upset by this essential gap between theory and practice. Maybe, our social workers merely share a universalistic dissatisfaction with their international colleagues. In 1958, the NASW Commission on social work practice voiced similar concerns. Carew (1979), Sheldon (1979) and other researchers in the West, have found that it is common for western students and social workers to complain about the incongruence of theory and practice. As Goldstein (n.d.) put it, that even though the curriculum policy of CSWE has been modified over the years in response to changing definitions of social work practice, the concept of integration (between theory and practice) has remained constant.

However, the more crucial question for our study concerns the westernization of education. The majority of workers claimed that even though the literature and the books were westernized, the overall education (which includes field practice) was not! However, a minority of workers (less than one-third) held the contrary view and therefore, supported what Midgely (1981), Brigham (1982), Roan (1980) and Aptekar (1967) had to say. It is undeniable that theory does need to be more consonant with practice and that more indigenous literature needs to be developed. However, what needs to be emphasized is the fact that the majority of workers hold a positive view of their education – a view which recognizes the flaws of the educational system, but which at the same time, speaks of a

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remarkable adaptability that goes beyond mere theoretical arguments, into a mode which supports successful practice.

There are at least three reasons we can cite which had led us to assume that we would find the majority of workers complaining about the westernization of their education. A superficial look at the educational system, suggests that the social work theory and literature used in the schools is largely western and therefore unsuited to the cultural needs of people in India. Secondly, the models of education being followed in the Indian schools are rooted in western theory. Finally, the course outlines, that we examined prior to conducting our study, led us to assume that much is western.

However, our research did not stop at a surface analysis but carried the theory versus practice argument and the westernization of education notion into the heart of the field situation, to practitioners and students, to find out how they handled culture conflicts and opposing belief systems. What emerged from the data was pleasantly surprising. It was not as if social workers were uncritical of their education and its western roots, or that they did not face culture conflicts; rather, what emerged is the social worker who is ready to adapt learning into practice.

How the Indian caseworker manages to accomplish this transformation can only be argued hypothetically. There could be some implicit processes in the educational system that have a positive effect in generating this adaptability. Perhaps, the personal values that workers embibe as a result of their education, helps them to be adapt to the practical world. Moreover, the experiential learning component – the field practicum – helps to indigenize what is learnt from western books. Then, there is the large body of unpublished, indigenous literature, case studies and the like, which are used as training material for students, and which are not documented formally. Further, the ability of teachers and field supervisors, help students to apply what is learned in the classroom to the field.

However, there are contradictions and dichotomies that emerge in any argument. In the westernization of education argument, there is the idea that there are universally applicable principles in social work education, which are now being down played because of the emphasis on indigenization. On the other hand, is the argument that in spite of cultural differences across cultures is the reality of differences within cultures, differences between various communities, religious groups, tribes, castes and between urban and rural areas. In fact, some of these other processes

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stemming from the larger culture could very well have promoted the spirit of adaptation. Workers in our sample were all residents of a large, cosmopolitan, highly urbanized city like Bombay. Further, other factors could have contributed to this as well: the fact of being Indian and being part of a diverse cultural heritage, a culture which has been influenced by numerous foreign invasions; of belonging to a pluralistic and democratic society with over a hundred political parties, and a country with eighteen different languages. Therefore, perhaps it is important to acquire an education which besides including cultural arguments, is not narrow and limiting but provides the freedom to reflect by opening up the boundaries surrounding narrow, domestic walls.

It is not as if we are trying to find excuses that the flaws in the present educational system be overlooked. All we are suggesting is that the picture is not altogether as bleak and dismal as anticipated. There is the reality that it can be improved to encompass some of the criticisms emerging from our respondents. Serious effort should be made to attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice; and attempts to make indigenization more apparent even from a theoretical perspective. This means that the unpublished material in the schools of social work be published and shared with other schools. This would generate more culture-based arguments among students and become part of the initial learning process. Experience and time would, therefore, just enhance this consciousness of indigenizing the theory to suit practice. Hopefully, in this manner certain implicit processes may become more explicit in the education. Finally, workers should be provided enough opportunities for continuing education which is more relevant to their practice.

Even though our data are not generalized to all professional schools of social work, it is important to replicate the study in other parts of the country to get a more realistic picture of what the Indian social work scene is like and what needs to be done to improve it further.

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