Strategizing Social Work Response to Sustainable Development Goals Through Open and Distance Learning

Abstract

As the national Governments are grappling with the SDGs, they can get benefitted by the rich pool of knowledge which professional social work has generated. The social work organizations are therefore fast emerging as major role players in developing countries where resources are scarce and change is immediately needed. India is home to one third of the extremely poor population of the world. It is a major challenge as the communities to be addressed are diverse in terms of level of development, ethnicity, socio economic profile, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Social work professionals can immensely contribute to bring such communities to mainstream. This is the reason why capacity building of professional social workers is a matter of concern particularly in developing countries. The conventional systems of education find themselves very unfavorably positioned to meet such educational demands. This chapter identifies the issues involved in social work education, describes its role to accomplish SDGs and explores the role of Open and Distance Learning (ODL).