Social Work Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this Issue of Australian Social Work (ASW), the journal of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW). This, and the previous Issue (Volume 72, Issue 1, 2019), have been dedicated to various aspects of social work education in Australia, a body of work that is timely and very welcome. There is little doubt that we are facing critical challenges in this space. However, at the same time, we have encouraging opportunities to address these challenges. We need to ensure that we are proactive and clever in how we move forward. As presented in this issue of ASW, some of the present challenges for social work education are not new, and have been gaining momentum for some time. The neoliberalist agenda of our Federal Government continues to make the rules and place pressure on universities, on the realities of the lives of our students, and on those most vulnerable in our society (e.g., Baglow & Gair, 2019; Newcomb, Burton, & Edwards, 2019). Universities are big businesses, competing not only with each other but also with private higher education entities and overseas markets. Where once financial gains from international students were a bonus for universities, they are now core income. The pressure to accommodate this market imperative can have a profound effect not only on social work programs themselves but also in the field as we struggle to fulfil our obligations around placements and support for students (e.g., Vassos, 2019; Waugh, 2019; Zuchowski, Cleak, Nixon, & Spencer, 2019) According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey 2018 (ABS, 2018; Australian Government, Department of Jobs and Small Business, 2018), the number of social work positions grew strongly in the last five years and that growth is expected to continue for the next five years. These workforce projections will see demand for social work programs within universities continue. It is yet to be seen if governments and universities will bring extra resources to the table to deal with this growth. At the same time, the laissez faire attitude in the current political climate is pushing for professional accrediting bodies to take a step back in some of the areas that have traditionally been “our space” in education. It is important that we negotiate this pressure sensibly to ensure that we maintain and further develop professional standards to maximise the quality of social work education. Any relaxing of standards needs to be done in the spirit of innovation and to address issues that we have identified as a profession, not for financial gain only for the universities. We know that organisations, agencies, and social workers find it challenging to survive in this context and find it difficult to continue to offer placements that meet the field education requirements of our students (e.g., Ross, Ta, & Grieve, 2019). Those working in the field education teams within the social work programs in universities will tell us that it is becoming much more difficult to find placements, to find social work supervisors, to place students (especially as the complexity of the reality of student lives increases), and to resource those placements (e.g., Hill, Cleak, Egan, Ervin, & Laughton, 2019; Zuchowski et al., 2019). Add to this mix, the current challenging circumstances faced by many students who are spending an increasing amount of time in paid work (e.g., Baglow & Gair, 2019; Gair & Baglow, 2018a). In order to be classified as “independent” prior to 22 years of age, and