Global Social Work: Tanzania: Call for Formation of Social Work Council

Tanzania: Call for Formation of Social Work Council
Mwakyusa, A. (2014). All Africa. 

SOCIAL workers in Tanzania have called for the establishment of National Social Work Council to steer the profession, which, despite its potential to bring about social reformation, is not fully utilised.

Chairman of Tanzania Emerging Schools of Social Work Education Programme (TESWEP), Dr Naftali Ng'ondi, made the call on the sidelines TESWEP's annual general meeting held in Dar es Salaam.

The meeting was attended by representatives of more than 12 public and private institutions of higher learning which offer social work courses.

"Establishment of a council would enable us to perform our work efficiently as it would oversee and put in place guidelines to be adhered to by social workers," Dr Ng'ondi, who is also a lecturer at the Institute of Social Work (ISW), said, adding: "It is a standard practice everywhere in the world that in order to have competent social workers they must be registered and certified by a council."

The don was confident however that the council would be created in the near future since the government had shown commitment on the matter.

"The process is now at the ministerial level but there are some processes which have to be followed before the council is established and become operational," he explained.

Dr Ng'ondi expressed concern, saying both the public and private sectors were not making the best use of the available social workers.

"It has now become a trend, particularly in the private sector, to employ people with other professions to undertake duties that should have been done by professional social workers," he lamented.

"It is true, on the other hand, that the country was facing shortage of social workers since there was only one institution training them in the past, namely ISW, but now the number of institutions offering such courses is more than 12."

Studies conducted during the year 2011/2012 showed that the country faced a shortage of 5,000 social workers, but the gap was slowly being closed.

Representatives from institutions offering social work studies who attended the meeting decried shortage of human resources and facility in training social workers across the country.

TESWEP is a project of TASWO and brings together universities and colleges on sharing information, knowledge as well as harmonising and standardising the curricula.

TASWO is supported by the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and CDC/Tanzania through a capacitybuilding partnership managed by the American International Health Alliance (AIHA).