The International Development of Social Work Education

The Vietnam Experience

Edward Cohen, Alice Hines, Laurie Drabble, Hoa Nguyen, Meekyung Han, Soma Sen, Debra Faires

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351173506
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

A robust infrastructure for education and training is vital for the development of an emerging social work education in developing countries. This book fills a gap in the existing literature by providing analysis of international practice methods which can be used by developing countries to develop their own professional and educational infrastructures.

The authors' experience of over eight years in Vietnam in enhancing social work education has yielded important information about the contexts, approaches, and lessons learned when disseminating educational systems and content in non-Western countries. Covering improvements to faculty expertise, university leadership, curriculum, and the use of technology with careful attention to cultural contexts, the chapters describe a model of knowledge transfer which can be generalized to other countries and other fields with emerging professions.

International Development of Social Work Education should be considered required reading for all social work academics, students and professionals as well as those working in social and community development.

Part I

Background and Foundations

1 The enhancement of social work education in Vietnam

This chapter provides the introduction to the book including the social context and background for our work in Vietnam, spanning eight years from 2008 to 2016. It examines the relationship between the historical and economic development of Vietnam during this time and the growing need for enhanced and improved social work education to provide a skilled professional workforce to further the development of social welfare in the country. We provide an overview of our work in Vietnam including the Social Work Education Enhancement Project (SWEEP), an international collaborative focused on Vietnam’s undergraduate social work programs, designed and funded to develop social work education in Vietnam through international partnership and collaboration. The SWEEP project is used to illustrate themes throughout the book. We conclude with a synopsis of chapters to follow.

Background for the book

From San José to Hanoi, June 2008

Our involvement in Vietnam began with an invitation to visit Vietnam National University, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (VNU), Hanoi in June 2008 to discuss the possibility of collaborating on the development of social work programs and curriculum. Four colleagues from the School of Social Work at San José State University (SJSU) traveled to Hanoi for a week-long visit that included a national conference hosted by VNU, visits to field agencies, and meetings with faculty, administrators, and community stakeholders. The purpose of the two-day conference was to begin a dialogue about how SJSU could assist Vietnam in developing social work education and its nascent social work profession. There was considerable discussion about the correct Vietnamese translation for the word “social work” to differentiate it from volunteer work; the stigma surrounding the work, as it was seen as charity and usually done by women; and how to gain national recognition for social work as it was not yet viewed as a profession by the government of Vietnam.

In 2008, Vietnam, a country of approximately 80 million, three quarters the size of California, with 54 different ethnic groups, and 36% of the population under 18 years of age (T.D. Le et al., 2008; GSO, 2016), was viewed by the global community as one of the newly coined “transition economies”. It was bustling with activity and commerce that characterized countries having experienced major changes in the mid-to-late 1980s including the merger of East and West Germany, and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia leading to the division of the Soviet Union (Napier & Thomas, 2004). In 1986, the government of Vietnam had implemented a package of economic reforms known as Doi Moi, a “market renovation under soviet guidance” that transformed the previously planned, vertically oriented, primarily agricultural economy into a market economy in which trade was opened to the rest of the world (Vu, 2016). Following resumption of trade with the U.S. in 1994, the two countries opened diplomatic liaison offices in Washington and Hanoi, with a U.S. ambassador posted in Hanoi in 1997. In December 2001, the U.S. and Vietnam signed the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) that led to Vietnam joining the World Trade Organization in 2007 (USAID/Vietnam, 2013). The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Representative office was opened in 2007, with a full mission being established in 2010. As a result of these developments, trade was flowing freely between both countries. Vietnam’s emerging status as a viable trade partner worldwide opened up opportunities for greater availability of goods and services, and more businesses and job opportunities within the country, setting the stage for enhanced economic and social development.

The enormity of this transition was remarkable. The poverty rate decreased from 58% in 1993 to 14.5% in 2008, with 28 million people having been lifted out of poverty (T.D. Le, 2008; GSO, 2010); the country had become Southeast Asia’s fastest growing economy. However, as is true for most emerging and transition economies, the wealth impacted primarily urban areas, leaving those in rural districts behind. In addition to economic disparities in rural areas, the country faced high rates of urban migration and corresponding social problems that also plague more industrialized nations. The poor, living in rural areas, were relying heavily on subsistence agriculture, with low levels of education and skills, physical isolation, and exposure to natural disasters. The burgeoning urban areas also started to manifest social problems that needed attention. The need for a strengthened social work profession and a social welfare infrastructure was clear as emerging social problems, including for example, households still impacted by poverty, drug use, the trafficking of people, and gaps in capacity for addressing the needs of persons with HIV/AIDS, persons with disabilities, and those exposed to natural disasters, as well as persons impacted by mental health issues and severe mental illness were challenging Vietnam’s nascent social welfare programs and infrastructure (MOLISA/UNICEF, 2009). Data compiled by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in 2008 showed that one fourth of the Vietnam population were estimated to need social work services (T. Nguyen, 2009).

Given these emerging social issues, a major priority for Vietnam in 2008 was to educate qualified social workers as part of an overall strategy for developing social work as a profession and strengthening the country’s social welfare infrastructure. During our initial visit to Hanoi, we learned about the limitations in the universities’ ability to provide social work education. Among the challenges was the lack of social workers with advanced degrees to teach in higher education and the limited number of faculty with social work practice, teaching and scholarship experience, as most had come from other disciplines. While there appeared to be an increased number of faculty receiving a master’s degree from overseas universities, most had more exposure to theory rather than direct involvement in social work practice. We learned that although many students were enrolling in existing undergraduate social work programs (approximately 11 in number), there were severe shortages of qualified field instructors, culturally appropriate curricula, educational materials, and texts in Vietnamese. The country also lacked a national association of social workers and a central leadership to develop national social work and social welfare policy. A key message to our delegation was that VNU and the country required our support and assistance in order to move forward.

During that first visit, we also had the opportunity to visit social service agencies; one was an orphanage located in a rural community about 30 miles outside of Hanoi, and the other a school for the blind in the city. We realized that although both sites required formally trained social workers and updated professional staff training, some of the methods and strategies in use were quite innovative and could provide some new ideas for the ways in which we provided services to clients in the U.S., including those from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. For example, in addition to children, the orphanage provided care for elderly clients, in effect enabling the agency to offer services in a multi-generational context that created a family-like supportive atmosphere for children as well as a sense of purpose and community for senior residents. The school for the blind integrated sight impaired students with non-visually impaired students, a strategy that fostered assistance and friendships, facilitating blind students’ adjustment into society. Considering that San José is home to the largest per capita Vietnamese population in the U.S., with approximately ten percent of the population Vietnamese, we saw that a collaboration with Vietnam and lessons we learned could be translated to valuable classroom material, benefitting SJSU as well. By the end of our visit, we were convinced of the need, excited about where this collaboration and mutual exchange might lead, and voiced our willingness to be part of the journey.

Developing partnerships in a rapidly changing context

Our hands-on involvement in Vietnam began a few months later as part of a UNICEF-funded, VNU-sponsored project, which included the transmission of a foundation-level social work curriculum in the areas of policy, human behavior, practice, and research (see Chapter 2 for more details on this project). Relationships that were developed and knowledge gained during this initial project led to a successful grant proposal to USAID to establish a three-year cooperative agreement to implement the Social Work Education Enhancement Program (SWEEP). SWEEP was designed as an initiative to improve social work education in Vietnam through an international collaborative including USAID, SJSU, eight universities in Vietnam, Vietnam’s government ministries, and Cisco Systems, Inc. The goal of SWEEP was to strengthen the capacity of Vietnam’s higher education social work programs in order to deliver quality education and prepare trained, job-ready social workers. SWEEP aimed to improve the administration of social work education, the professional capacity of faculty, social work curriculum, and networking technology to enable centers for excellence in learning and scholarship. Please see Chapter 2 for more details on the project, activities, and implementation.

Our formal collaboration with Vietnamese partners ended with our final report submitted to USAID in May 2016, eight years after our initial visit to Hanoi. Throughout our experience, we witnessed continued rapid economic development, and increased global connectedness that brought numerous benefits to the country. By 2016, Vietnam was recognized as a middle-income country, with a highly diversified economy and a population well over 90 million (World Bank, 2017). The effects of Doi Moi were clearly not only economic, but were also visible in new ideas and attitudes, with traditional values shifting, including the concept of gender, family structure, and work. These changes had been accelerated by the increasing rapid expansion of internet access and availability cell phones, with the country currently having one the highest rate of cell phone saturation in the world (Vu, 2016). At the same time the rapid economic and social change had diminished community cohesion, traditional values, and changed the nature family relationships, leading to further social risks described in more detail in Chapter 2.

During our eight-year experience in Vietnam, the government had taken steps to mitigate the impact of social problems through the development of policies and decrees to address gender equality, domestic violence, and the expansion of rights for all including women and ethnic minorities. The government of Vietnam also issued several decrees and policies to develop social work and Vietnam’s social welfare infrastructure. By 2016, social work had progressed rapidly having been recognized as a profession in 2010. More than 50 undergraduate programs, and at least one master’s program, were providing social work education, with several master’s programs as well as a few PhD programs in the early stages of development. Please see Chapter 3 for a detailed discussion of the development of social work education in Vietnam.

Throughout this book, we highlight our experience of over eight years in Vietnam in enhancing social work education that has yielded important information about the contexts, approaches, and lessons learned when disseminating educational systems and content in non-Western, developing countries. Using our SWEEP collaboration as a model, we focus on the theories and methods of enabling the development of educational infrastructures in emerging economies. With practical examples from Vietnam, we provide a model of collaboration and local empowerment to respond to social inequities and social problems stemming from rapid social and economic change.

Overall purpose and target audience

The overall aim of this monograph is to fill a gap in the existing literature on international social work education. While there are books on international social work practice and general theories and practice of social work education, we were unable to locate any that addressed a concentrated effort to enhance all aspects of social work education in countries with an under-developed professional infrastructure and educational system. This work contributes to the development of international practice methods—now expanded to include empowering developing countries to develop their own professional and educational infrastructures. In addition to using our own work as a model and case study for discussion, we present a comparative overview of social work education in Southeast Asia, describe the history and current status of social work and social work education in Vietnam, and discuss the development of curriculum, faculty capacity, and university leadership in an international context. Issues including field internship training and inherent challenges, the use of technology in the development of social work education, and evaluation and assessment methods are discussed. We believe that this information can be generalized to other countries where the social work profession and educational infrastructure are emerging.

The information contained in this monograph is aimed at social work scholars at universities, particularly those teaching graduate courses in international social work and related disciplines and those involved in international projects, such as faculty-led student programs, faculty and visiting scholar exchange programs, or projects developing social work education. There is a current trend in university social work programs in the West to globalize content (i.e. to apply the social work education competencies for working in other countries and/or for working with immigrant and refugee populations locally) due to the changing demographics of the populations whom social workers serve. The proportion of immigrant and refugee populations in urban and rural areas has been steadily increasing, and their economic, familial, and cultural ties to their countries of origin remain very much alive. Our faculty and students who are involved in social work practice and scholarship with these local communities find that understanding the changing landscape of the global network is very important to adequately serve these communities. We, and our colleagues in other universities, have found that once educators begin to globalize the curriculum content, opportunities for international practice open up, and that there is a need for models of infrastructure development for this expanded definition of international practice. Since these trends are occurring in most countries throughout the world, this book is also aimed at country governments and universities that are in the midst of developing social work educational infrastructures, as well as those universities that are providing technical assistance and development activities to those countries. In Vietnam alone, for example, over the past decade aside from U.S. universities, many countries have contributed expertise in social work curriculum development, such as the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, among others.

Summary of chapters

2. Vietnam and comparative social work education in Southeast Asia

Chapter 2 provides the history and current status of social work and social work education in Vietnam, in the context of neighboring Southeast Asian countries. Both shared and disparate contextual issues in these countries are examined from the available literature. The background of social work education in Vietnam is examined both from the published literature as well as from the authors’ firsthand experience in the country. What we learned about the various contexts for Vietnam and its neighbors provided the principles with which we structured many SWEEP activities so that they would be culturally relevant and would fit the needs of stakeholders.

3. International collaboration and the development of social work in Vietnam: theories, models, and mechanisms

International collaboration requires that experts understand the local contexts in order to successfully transfer...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• PART I: Background and Foundations
• PART II: Implementation of the Social Work Education Enhancement Project
• PART III: Lessons Learned and Conclusions
• Index