Social Work Education in Africa

Abstract This chapter examines social work education in Africa, focusing on the experiences of three African countries, namely, Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia, from the colonial era to the present. The chapter argues that social work education in the three countries is still Western in content and outlook, and thus needs to be decolonised. Despite efforts by various role players to indigenise social work curricula in the said countries, after they gained independence, social work curricula still lack Indigenous content and theories. To deal with this shortfall, the chapter recommends that African Indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS) be included in social work education curricula in the three countries. The chapter provides a historical backdrop to social work in Africa and observes that the former is a by-product of public education in Africa during the colonial period. Nevertheless, it notes that there was education in the precolonial era, which was disrupted by European colonists who superimposed on it Western epistemologies and value systems. To this end, the chapter locates social work education in the foregoing history, argues for the incorporation of AIKS into social work education, and calls for the Africanisation of social work education curricula in Africa. It uses exploratory and case study research methods to augment its propositions for an Africanised social work education in Africa.