Application of Competence- Based
Education for Field Social Work Students:
A Cooperation between a Social work School and a
Non- Government Organization
MSW, PhD. Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong
University of Labor and Social AffairsB (ULSA)
Viet Nam
• Introduction to Social work Education in
Vietnam
• Project process
• Contributing to going concerns about CBE
SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION IN VIETNAM
• Decision 32 on SW development in Vietnam period
2010-2020
• approved on 25 March 2010 by the Government
• One of objectives of the Decision is that by 2020
there will be 60.000 SW-ers trained
Development of number of SW schools
Trước
1975:
1992
3-6 months 2 years
or 2 year
course
in Saigon
in Saigon
1997, 2005
2011
2013
2015
Course of
3 year
in Hanoi
29 schools
with
program
for college
and
university
level
37 schools
with
program
for college
and
university
level
3 schools
with mater
17
Vocational
schools
program
In some
provinces
-
more than
43
schools.
with MSW
Many
Vocational
schools
4 schools
with
university
program
In some
provinces
In some
provinces
CHALLENGES IN FIELD EDUCATION
• Field supervisors
• Field settings
• Mechanism for field education
A proposed Accreditation Standards
for Field Education at ULSA
• Standards regarding the school’s core purpose and
mission statement
• Standards regarding to program objectives and
outcomes
• Standards with regard to program Curriculum
• Standards with Regard to Social work Students
• Standards with regards to professional staff
• Standards with regards to structure administration,
governance and resources
• Standards with cultural and ethnic diversity and
gender inclusiveness
Standards regarding the school’s core
purpose and mission statement
• Expliciting relationship to exist between
programs in the educational institutions and
service agencies.
STANDARDS REGARDING TO PROGRAM
OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES
- Specify its objectives and expected higher education
outcomes so as there is a linkage between this level to
other levels when the students keep studying in higher
levels at school.
- Reflect its values and ethical principles of the profession in
its programme design and implementation
- Indicate that the programme meets the requirements of
nationally defined professional goals, and how the
programme addresses local, national and/or regional
developmental needs and priorities.
- take account of the impact of interacting cultural,
economic, communication, social, political and
psychological national factors ahead before international
factors.
Standards with regard to program
Curriculum
• ULSA needs to increase the length of the field
learning experience for Social work students by
at least 200 hours so that students can be
ensured to be prepared for practice.
• The school should also include and involve the
participation of field instructors in curriculum
development and needs to ensure the adequacy
and appropriateness of resources to meet the
needs of the fieldwork component of the
programme.
Standards with regards to
professional staff
- Faculty instructors are provided opportunities to
participate in the development of its core purpose or
mission, in the formulation of the objectives and
expected outcomes of the programme
- In the context that not all social work staff possess
social work qualifications, any programs from
government to build up capacity for social work
trainers must be the first prioritized for these staffs.
- A group of staff dedicated to manage field education
matters should be provided chances to continue
professional development, particularly in areas of
emerging knowledge
Standards with Regard to Social work
Students
- Explicit criteria for the evaluation of student’s
academic and field work performance.
- Non-discrimination against any students on
the basis of ‘race’, colour, culture, ethnicity,
linguistic origin, religion, gender, sexual
orientation, age, marital status, physical status
and socio-economic status.
- The assessment of students is clearly explained
to all students and operated without prejudice.
Standards with regards to structure
administration, governance and resources
- The school’s budgetary allocation is sufficient to achieve the
field courses objectives.
- There are adequate physical facilities, including classroom
space, offices for professional and administrative staff and
space for student, faculty and field liaison meetings.
- There is provision of adequate infrastructure, including
classroom space, computers, texts, community resources for
fieldwork education except the case of an agency with poor
conditions.
- The school needs to provide on-site instruction and
supervision to facilitate the achievement of its core purpose
or mission, programme objectives and expected outcomes,.
- The school develops and maintains linkages within the
institution, with external organizations, and with service users
relevant to its core purpose or mission
Standards with cultural and ethnic diversity
and gender inclusiveness
- Making efforts to ensure the enrichment of the
educational experience by reflecting cultural and ethnic
diversity, and gender analysis in field education course.
- Indicating that issues regarding gender analysis and
cultural and ethnic diversity are represented in the
fieldwork component of the programme.
- Ensuring that social work interns are provided with
opportunities to develop self-awareness regarding their
personal and cultural values, beliefs, traditions and biases
and their impacts on the ability to develop relationships
with people, and to work with diverse population groups.
- Minimising group stereotypes and prejudices, and
ensuring that racist behaviours, policies and structures
are not reproduced through social work practice.
Standards with regard to value and ethical code
of conduct for the social work profession
- Focus and pay particular attention to this aspect of
the programme in curricula design and
implementation.
- Ensuring that every professional staff member is
aware of the boundaries of professional practice
and what might constitute unprofessional
conduct in terms of the code of ethics.
- Taking appropriate action in relation to those
social work students and professional staff who fail
to comply with the code of ethics.
university of labor and social affairs
(ULSA)
UNIVERSITY OF LABOR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS
SOCIAL WORK FACULTY
Hµ Néi, June, 2008
https://www.google.com/search?q=university+of+labor+and+social
+affairs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
(http://www.actionaid.org.vn).
INTRODUCTION
• The joint project between Action Aid Vietnam and
ULSA in Hanoi: “ Investing in Young Generation” is a
landmark for a transition from traditional models of
field practicum into the new one through this
cooperation, two general goals (1) promoting models
of government administration at grassroot levels
focussing on people’s participation; accessing and
information exposure to the people and (2) building
capacity for social work practitioners in which the first
aims are to accomplish the organization’s mission and
the second is focussed on the educational objectives of
the institution.
School Curriculum
• The curricumum provides some of these skills
and knowledge
Competences
• In social work field, competences are defined
mostly based on what responsibilities the
social worker must undertake within a field of
practice (position) and within a range of
anticipated contexts (requires the capability of
anticipating of the leader), as well as the
level of performance they are expected to
achieve within the context of agency
requirements, client needs and situational
relevance
Competence- based Education
• Identifying competencies needed in work
place
• Programing curriculum relevant to help
students accomplish the goals
• Methods to run the curriculum
• Valuating the competencies attained
Competences identified as
requirements to students
+ Getting- in and building relationship effectively
+ Holding a meeting for Community needs
assessment,
+ Conducting workshop on specific topics,
+ Planning
+ Engaging community’s participation
+ Making a dialogue
…………………………………..
Cultural competence
• As the field work is the ethnic areas, cultural
competencies are essential:
- Adaptability with the hard life
- Communicating with the villagers
- Accept community habits
- Patience
RUNNING THE PROJECT
•
•
•
•
Competence assessment
Capacity building
Supervision
Evaluation
Competence Assessment
- Long list of students interested in the program
- Find the students most relevant (most competent
with competencies required)
- Questions are focused on
+ students’ understanding about the project,
+ the cultures of these minority populations,
+ expected challenges and experiences they have
had in their own lives when dealing with
differences.
Capacity building
• 4 day orientation workshop to build capacities
working with Ethnic minorities
Building Capacity For the Taking- in Admissions
+ to help enrich students’ knowledge of the
ethnic groups’ cultures,
+ to teach students how to produce a video,
+ to provide skills working with communities,
especially in ethinic areas
+ to write reports and document other products
such as case studies, field practicum diaries.
Building capacity
• Small group discussions from students, sharing
experiences from the previous cohorts and answers
from local officials to students’ concerns
- holding a meeting for needs assessment,
- conducting workshop on specific topics, or
- planning to tackle the communit y’s problems were
practiced in role playing.
- to produce a participatory video about a special issue
of the community,
- write stories of typical people and collect cultures of
these ethnic groups.
Building Competences Is a Process
• Social work basic competences and cultural competences
are developed through direct involvement in dealing with
community issues. Staying in the field, living, working and
communicating with the villagers provide students good
chances to enrich their knowledge, develop their skills and
attitudes to work with these ethnic groups. Besides, a
collection of ethnic cultures as an assigned task requires
students to be insightful of the ethnics’ values, beliefs.
• Bythere, they engage in communications, observations and
self- awareness to see what is different from their own
cultures such as the ethnic’s fashion, customs in marriage
or mourning, new year celebration, health healers, belief,
other special festivals and so on.
Building Competences Is a Process
• What have been seen and done are presented daily
and discussed in group before they decide what to be
documented in the notebook as an final written
assignment. Students become more sensitive to the
differences between their cultures and that of the
people they are trying to help.
• The process of participating, involving villagers in
collecting information, identifying community needs,
planning and implementing the action plan, all
provided students with opportunities to practice and
develop skills working with communities.
Supervising as a Tool to Develop and
Evaluate Competences
• Local officiers as field supervisors
• Frequent visits from university instructors
- To support students in developing their
competences
- To evaluate how competent the students are in
the process.
Evaluation
• What have been observed, heard, and
described/read/ seen
- Supervision
- Observe/visit to see the products in the
communities
- Evaluation conference (villagers, project
officiers, students stories)
- Documents of students: reports, jouirnals,
diaries, collection of community culures…
Becoming a True Change Agent
(A story of a village woman talking about
students in supporting the villagers to build the
electric line)
Building Roads in Điện Biên
-
35
Build toilets and Move bafflow
cages out of the houses
36
37
Toilets built
38
Workshop training
39
40
Documentation
41
How competences developed?
• Their competences are also internalized and
self- developed during the direct work in the
field and in documentation process when they
come back from the communities.
“I ve never attended such an interesting talk as
the one given by you, trully interesting”
43
The benefitials evaluation
We were informed that we would be
supported 1 million to move the bafflow
cage, but nothing has changed until the
students came to the area, with 3
hundred, but we can do it now.
44
A letter of a ethnic woman (Lũng
Toản- Thông Nông- Cao Bằng)
45
I am Hmong, I know nothing, Pls come to my house when you have
time, I am ethnic, I don’t know what to begin to make aqquantance
…. If I can come and see what you teach…. I am so happy, I don’t’
know how to answer. I am Hau Thi Lys
46
Evaluation workshop
47
Going back and look ahead
• General social work
• A process of learning for both students and
lecturers
• Process of CBE:
- Competence assessement/expected to
achieve
- Choosing a relevant field sites
- Supervising
• Standards of field education need to be
added: (health, field instructors)
• Cultural competences as vital for students in
the field
• Duration of stay in the field
Challenges and Limitations in
Application of CBE Model
- Competence Assessment of students as gatekeeping or outcomes
Challenges and Limitations in
Application of CBE Model
• Supervision as supporting students and
evaluating the students’ competences through
direct observation. However, this purpose is not
achieved as expected. For it is carried out at
different times of the project while it is clearly
recognized that competences will be best
exposed in situations, and level of competence
depends on the level of difficulties in achieving
the stated objectives. Observing at different
times might bring different impressions on how
much competent the students are. Multiple
observations in multiple contexts may increase
reliability of this type of evaluation
Challenges and Limitations in
Application of CBE Model
• Students’ achieved competences are
evaluated by the outcomes produced in the
community’s work as building or rebuilding
social welfare constructions or the increase in
villagers’ awareness of or build capacity of
solving the communities’ issues.
looking back
• Through the whole process of the project, it is
noticeably recognized that, all issues related to
competences are evidently exposed: The unclear
definition of the concept “competence” causes
difficulties in competence assessment; observation
assessment may resul t in inconsistence in outcomes.
Other confounding factors may come from information
providers with various ability to articulate. These issues
are, therefore, the rationales for the ongoing
controversial debates on competence-based education,
and will interfere with the implementation of
competence- based education in any professional
training.
Suggestions to social work education
in VietNam
• Competence and cultural competence as the necessities of
the learning objectives in field work course in social work
schools.
• To build competences and cultural competences requires
appropriate methods of education, in which students have
more opportunities to be trained as competent to the
work, supervised and supported timely and to be evaluated
in reasonable contexts and with concrete criteria.
• Internship students under competence- based approach
may achieve relevant cultural competences by engaging
actively to activities brought about, being willing and
sensitively to encounter challenges when dealing with
differences of clients.
Experiential learning
• CBE is student- centred base
• In FE, Cbe is client- centered base
• Competences are identified, developed to
most closely to the requirements
• Suprvising is a vital tool to help develop sts’
competences
• Evaluation must be done with all responsible
Experiential learning
Field settings in field setting network
- Inform competencies needed to support the
clients to social work school
- School needs to find out what competencies
needed in the settings to then to match the field
students
Contributing to on-going concerns
• Identifying competences
• Competences as requirements or objectives to
attain?
• Just in competences assessment?
• Just in evaluation?
•Thank you for your
attention!