ABSTRACT
In the true sense, Indian social work education has completed 100 years in 2005. The first short-term training for social work was initiated by Gopal Krishna Gokhale through the Servants of India Society in 1905. The training for voluntary social workers was started in 1930 by the Social Service League (SSL) in Mumbai. But social work education for its professional practice in India was formally initiated in the year 1936 under the academic leadership of Dr. Clifford Manshardt and the first school was known as Sir Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work which offered its first diploma titled ‘Diploma in Social Service Administration’. Clifford emphasized that the Indianness in social work must fall into three general fields: the academic curriculum, practical/fieldwork, and social work Research. It is on this basis that initially many schools of social work and departments in the university system were established in India.
Academic inputs and curriculum design drew ideas from the west for social work academic training in India. Existing curricula practised in America were artificially inseminated into the training module at Sir Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work. The subject papers taught were from a borrowed curriculum and literature from the USA and less on community development, a more relevant course for the Indian condition. Faculty assistance was initiated by the US Education Foundation and the US Technical Cooperation Mission to orient the way in which courses must be taught in India. It is in this context that the present chapter focuses on the relevance of social work curriculum to the Indian society to address its problems. The chapter attempts to review the aspects in terms of its original formation, changes and growth and the future agenda for social work curriculum. An attempt is also made to discuss to what extent it could be possible to make social work curriculum truly Indian.
