Internationalization of social work education in India through student exchanges: challenges and prospects

ABSTRACT

Internationalization of social work education in terms of student mobility, staff mobility, curriculum transaction and research collaboration are getting on priority agendas of universities across the globe. This could be attributed to the demands of the profession to be cultural sensitive and being adaptive to the educational standards which could empower the practice. Indian social work education and its internationalization is discussed in this paper in the context of ‘International student exchanges’ from author’s experience. This paper is descriptive and based on a single case study of one school of social work in South India. Social work interns who participated in international exchanges appreciate the need for knowledge of global priorities and strategies to advance social work education, research and skill development for practice. Though the literature focus more on different models of international student mobility programs, there need to have deliberations, rules of partnership and clear exchange goals specifically on ‘international student exchanges’, which will contribute towards the internationalization of Indian social work education. This paper identify the importance of International student exchanges in internationalizing Indian social work education as well as opening new avenues of collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• International social work education
• field education
• student mobility
• student exchanges

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Kiran Thampi

Kiran Thampi, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences (Autonomous), Kalamassery, Kerala, India. Author has the teaching experience of fifteen years at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels in Social Work. He is an international visiting faculty and appointed as an adjunct faculty in Nazareth College, USA for Summer A 2015. He is also coordinating the Office of International Relations in the Kalamassery Campus for the last eight years which covers faculty exchanges, student exchanges and collaborative research between the partnering Universities.