Understanding emerging schools of social work in Tanzania through the Ubuntu perspective

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive assessment of the emerging social work schools in Tanzania through the Ubuntu perspective. Ubuntu formed the basis of educational pedagogy in pre-colonial Tanzania but colonial rule imported Western social work approaches in the 1940s to replace it. The challenges include fragmented training with an influence of inherited colonial structure, outdated curricula, training materials that do not replicate African ecology and cultural values, indigenization of training, and lack of indigenous inputs even as graduates do not fit into the global market. Despite the challenges, emerging social work training schools have rendered several opportunities including social work research and consultancy, the emergence of indigenization of social work, abundance of social work indigenous elites and literature, TESWEP transformed into ASSWOT that advocated and participated in social welfare policies review that contain more African requirements. The paper recommends that key stakeholders should develop a comprehensive social work policy and related legislation to control the quality of training and practice for realization of Ubuntu goals. Also, Ujamaa competence should be restored in the training package while TASWO, and ASSWOT should address the gap between educators and practitioners while speeding up the indigenization of social work education with Ubuntu values.