REGULATING SOCIAL WORK IN INDIA

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 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 ? 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 -centred 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 2013 ( 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.