Emergence of Social Work Education in Africa: An Historical Perspective

Abstract

Social work education has a crucial role to play in training students and in preparing them for the realities of practice in a conflict- ridden society. This requires an understanding of the nature of our society and the range of social science disciplines; which will be the foundation of the theoretical base of the student. The knowledge and information of development of social work education in different countries is very important to understand to the social worker. Social worker practice and their knowledge definitely influence their mode of practice. They have to take into consideration the history, social ideology and social development of the particular country before they create programs of action to ameliorate social problems of a country. During this unit, we examined the history of social work education in different countries of Africa. Here, we build on that foundation, considering policies, functioning and philosophies of social work education in Africa. Before going ahead, countries’ welfare system have to be understood within the historical context of the way in which each particular society’s basic institutions were influenced by and responded to the external influences imposed upon them during the pre- and post-colonial era.