Social work education in South Asia: diverse, dynamic and disjointed?

Abstract

Social work, claiming to be a global profession, is struggling for its legitimate identity in South Asia. South Asia is home to over one-fifth of the world’s population, making the region one of the most populous and culturally, economically, socially and politically diverse geographical regions. Like the variations across the region, there exist key differences in the growth, establishment, nature and practice of social work education which is dynamic, diverse but also disjointed. Imparting social work education in countries of South Asia is a challenging task due to political instabilities, multicultural issues and low professional recognition. Using a comparative approach, this chapter analyses the initiation, growth and knowledge base of social work programs and addresses key epistemological challenges. By doing so, it suggests revisiting social work curricula and teaching practices in the region. Divided in to five sections, this chapter provides a regional view of the status of social work education and argues for crafting indigenous social work knowledge and practices, teaching and practice innovations, and human resource development of social work educators and students in this vast and diverse region.