Exploring Factors hindering harmonization of social work curriculum in Malawi

Registration ID: IJNRD_183384

Published ID: IJNRD2210043

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Lingson Dede

curriculum, contextualization, Harmonization, social work education

Social work has three important areas: education, research and practice. Social work practice has a professional approach to alleviating social problems in societies. It is focused on helping the vulnerable in society on a daily basis. For social work education to be relevant to the contextualized problems, there is need for harmonizing curriculum in higher education which involves integrating different curricula through political, academic and cultural devices while respecting the institutional particularities and characteristics. Due to the fact that the profession is in its developmental stages in Malawi, schools of social work are using globalized curricula which are not specifically reflecting the concerns and priorities of Malawi as a country. This problem can only be solved, if social work curricula in the institutions for higher education are harmonized. This study therefore was conducted to explore factors that have affected the process of harmonizing social work curriculum in Malawi. The study collected data from 47 purposively selected social work graduates, representatives for higher education institutions, social work employers and leadership for Association of Social Workers in Malawi who were taken through self-administered questionnaires. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The qualitative analysis used thematic analysis and the quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS. The study has found out that in Malawi there are diversified needs for a harmonized social work curriculum. This is the case because there are variations in capacity and performance among professionals in the field of social work, variations in teaching contents and teaching practices, the profession is susceptible to non-social workers who claim to be social workers and there is a mismatch between the need and skill in the field of social work. The study has also observed that the problems that have been brought in by un-harmonized social work curriculum have been attended to by different stakeholders. Efforts that the study has captured include: Development of social work Bill, organizing meetings with National Council for Higher Education in Malawi, Organizing meetings with schools of social work in Malawi, Consultancy services to higher education institutions and Learning visits to outside countries. However, the stakeholders’ efforts towards a harmonized social work curriculum have been facing challenges that have led to the delayed establishment of a harmonized social work curriculum. Such challenges include; Lack of funding, unwillingness by some universities to participate in processes regarding the topic, lack of legal frame work to guide the process and its implementation, resistance from some officials who are afraid of being negatively affected if the social work profession gets organized and inadequate publicity of the profession and the topic to stakeholders.

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Lingson Dede (October-2022). Exploring Factors hindering harmonization of social work curriculum in Malawi . INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 7(10), 352-367. https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2210043.pdf

Volume 7 Issue 10, October-2022

Pages : 352-367

Paper Reg. ID: IJNRD_183384

Published Paper Id: IJNRD2210043

Research Area: Social Science and Humanities 

Author Type: Foreign Author

Country: Lilongwe, - None -, Malawi

Published Paper PDF: https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2210043.pdf

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