Professional Social Work in India-problems and challengesP.Professor ilangotogsor and head of social work620023 mail: pon.ilango@gmail.Social work is a discipline that applies social theory and research methods to study and improve people, groups and social life.It integrates and uses other social sciences as a means to improve the human condition and actively changes the response of society to long-term problems.This is a career dedicated to the pursuit of social justice, the improvement of the quality of life and the development of the full potential of every individual, group and community in society.It seeks to address and address social problems at all levels of social and economic status, especially among the poor and the sick.Social workers are concerned with social problems, the causes of social problems, solutions to social problems, and the impact of social problems on humanity.They work with individuals, families and groups.In developed countries, only qualified professionals with social work education can intervene in mental health.Social issues for individuals and practitioners must be licensed or registered professionally.Unfortunately, in India, despite the many social work schools, the institutions and departments of colleges and universities have been growing slowly but steadily for the first 60 years, in the past ten years or so, the rapid growth, the quality of social work professional education and training and the level of professional practice continue to decline, seriously damaging the "professional status and image" of social work ".With the continuous emergence of social work departments, professional social work education is being commercialized, and problems of quality, credibility and ethical standards are compromised by different stakeholders.With the establishment of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, professional social work education began in India in 1936.Over the past 70 years, the number of schools/departments/institutions that provide social work education across the country has grown as never before.In India, there are now more institutions offering social work education in different professions.A serious problem in social work education is that professionals in different environments lack unity in curriculum and practice standards.Despite the efforts made earlier by well-known social work educators, in India we do not have a social work education committee.In the absence of a national committee, there is no system to certify the practice and licensing of social work institutions, standardized social work education, and social work practitioners.Different institutions across the country differ greatly in the content and quality of BSW and MSW courses.Despite the lack of consistency of state-level institutions representing social work schools and professional social workers, which coordinate and continue their efforts, to achieve the goal of establishing a mechanism for standardizing, certifying and licensing systems for national committees and other social work.Even active associations of social workers at the national and state levels are satisfied with regular programmes of academic interest, such as seminars, effectively organizing but rarely surpassing conferences and workshops for sporadic and geographically dispersed activities, fear the path to work hard to improve the quality and professional status of social work.In 1936, the social work education of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences emerged as a post-war development, and later the appointment of medical social workers at JJ hospital indicated that social work was accepted as a vocational India.Its knowledge base spans fields such as psychology, sociology, medicine, psychiatry, development theory, management, and welfare management, aiming to train professionals who can be appropriately referred to as social doctors or social engineers.However, after more than 70 years of establishment, India's social work profession is unfortunately groping for career space in the dark.The "agents of change" known as social workers do not seem to be able to change this increasingly vague identity
