Motives and career choices among Ugandan social work students

ABSTRACT

Despite the fact that social work has quite a long history in countries such as Uganda, there are few studies available about social work students’ motives and career wishes. The intention of this article is to start to fill this gap by using some of the motives explored in studies of European social work students and to compare them with those of Ugandan social work students. The data used draws on 149 students at the department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University. It is based on a mix methods study using a survey and focus group discussions. The majority of social work students come from urban or semi-urban areas. Some students choose a programme where they are certain to get a scholarship. There was generally a positive relationship between interest and perceived status of the social work area. Those areas that scored high on interest were also rated highly in terms of status. Therapy and counselling, education and research, and health social work were ranked high, while social work with the elderly, abused and with poor people and social assistance ranked low. Social work students in Uganda do not expect to get a social work job after their graduation.

ABSTRAKT

Trots att socialt arbete har funnits ganska länge i länder som Uganda finns det få studier om studenters motiv att börja på socialarbetarutbildning och om deras karriärönskningar. Avsikten med denna artikel är börja fylla denna brist genom att utgå från studier av Europeiska studenters motiv att börja en professionsutildning i socialt arbete och jämföra dem med erfarenheter från Ugandiska studenter. Studien utgår från material från 149 studenter vid institutionen för socialt arbete och social administration vid Makerere universitet. Artikeln bygger på en kombination av kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod i form av en enkät och två fokusgrupper. Majoriteten av studenterna kommer från urbana eller semiurbana miljöer. Vissa studenter valde program utifrån att de fick tillgång till ett specifikt stipendium. Det finns en stor överensstämmelse mellan studenternas intresse för olika professionsområden och tankarna om dessa områdens status. Områden som många vill söka sig till upplevs också ha hög status. Terapi och rådgivning, utbildning och forskning och hälsoinriktat socialt arbete rankas högt medan socialt arbete med äldre, missbruk och arbete med fattiga och försörjningsstöd rankas lägre. I många avseenden överenstämmer dessa önskningar med de europeiska studernas. Studenter i socialt arbete i Uganda räknar inte med att få ett socialarbetarjobb direkt efter sin examen.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work
• motives
• students
• Uganda

NYCKELORD:

• socialt arbete
• motiv
• studenter
• Uganda

Introduction

Social work education is well established in most high- and middle-income countries. During the last decades, it has amplified its status in developing countries as well. In Uganda, the number of social work students has increased very fast over recent years (Twikirize, 2014). The interest among researchers in studying social work students and their motives for becoming social workers seems to be vast when looking at the number of articles on the subject (Biggerstaff, 2000; Csikai & Rozensky, 1997; Dellgran & Höjer, 2005; Fortunato, Dellgran & Höjer, 2007; Hackett, Kuronen, Matthies, & Kresal, 2003; Moriarty & Murray, 2005). Most of these studies on motives are done in the Western world (mainly the United States or Europe) and this has been criticised from time to time. For example, social work students in African countries are more aware of the history and pre-professional predecessors in the United States than in their own countries, and it has been claimed that this may influence both what they come to expect and how they are being taught (Mwansa, 2011; Spitzer, Twikirize, & Wairire, 2014).

Despite the fact that social work has quite a long history in countries such as Uganda (Twikirize, 2014), there are few studies available about social work students’ motives and career wishes. The intention of this article is to start to fill this gap by using some of the motives explored in studies of European social work students and comparing them with those of Ugandan social work students.

The aim of this article is to describe and analyse the characteristics, motives and future professional aspirations among a group of social work students in Uganda. More precisely, the research questions are: Who studies social work and in what way do different backgrounds (gender and geographical location) affect students’ motives and aspirations? What are the motives for social work students in Uganda in getting a social work degree? How do they perceive their professional future?

This article has some limitations. The data used draws on 149 students at the department of Social Work and Social Administration (SWSA), Makerere University. This is the largest and oldest social work programme in Uganda, but not the only one, so it is not possible to generalise the results to all social work students in Uganda. However, no other study, to our knowledge, has been conducted on Ugandan social work students’ perceptions of these issues.

Social work education in Uganda

Makerere University was established in 1922 and is the oldest university in East Africa (Jacob, Nsubuga, & Mugimu, 2009). Until the late 1980s, Makerere was the only university in Uganda. Since then the expansion of higher education has led to the establishment of new universities, and currently there are 31 of them, of which 5 are public. In 2010, 21 institutions were offering a bachelor's degree in Social Work and Social Administration (Twikirize, 2014). Despite the establishment of new universities, Makerere is still the most prestigious university in Uganda and is, therefore, ‘the first choice’ for students. In January 2014, the total number of registered students at Makerere University was 37,101 (Makerere University Fact Book, 2013/2014). All students can apply for government scholarships but only 6 per cent of the applicants are admitted (Makerere University Fact Book, 2013/2014).

The economic situation for many of the students is quite demanding. The majority of them have to find other ways of supporting their studies besides scholarships (Sekabembe & Bakkabulindi, n.d.). The students’ financial support can be divided into two sorts: public and private support. Private support most commonly means that some relative (parent, aunt, etc.) pays the tuition fee and other expenses for the student. Public support is hard to obtain and is divided into three different kinds of scholarships: governmental, state and district. If the student gets a ‘governmental sponsorship’, the government pays the major part of expenses connected with studies, such as tuition fees and other fees connected with education, as well as costs for housing and living.¹ It is imperative to note that to obtain state or district sponsorship or even a student loan does not mean that the sponsorship caters for all expenses connected with the studies as with a governmental sponsorship. What they are paying differs a lot from just tuition fees and also includes living costs.

The department of SWSA, the place where this study took place, offers training to undergraduate and postgraduate students. The number of students (in 2014) in undergraduate programmes is 2183 and in postgraduate programmes there are 83 (SWSA department data base). The social work profession and subsequent practice in Uganda are neither regulated nor protected. Anybody trained in any humanities and social science field can be employed as a social worker. So the situation for social work in Uganda is so far relatively weak in comparison to many countries in Europe where the profession is protected in more ways. This means that the future for graduate SWSA students is filled with uncertainty and hard to predict (Twikirize, 2014).

Theoretical framework and review of literature

This study is based on a framework that stems from the sociology of the professions as well as literature on social work motivations. Welfare professions are often described as highly educated groups who, through the expertise and authority they have gained or been assigned, have managed to limit and monopolise certain fields of practice and knowledge (Macdonald, 1995). The status of a profession is normally defined in relation to how well its participants can claim a certain knowledge base, how well they have social sanction and is given jurisdiction over certain working tasks (Abbott, 1988). Social work as well as several other welfare professions are often claimed to be semi-professions, not having achieved the same independence and status as the traditional professions such as law or medicine (Etzioni, 1969). University education is normally considered as the socialization process into a specific professional area. The education is not only about mastering knowledge and skills but also about providing a world view, sometimes called a professional identity (Hall, 2005). We also know that social work students, as well as others hold values that have attracted them to a certain education. Since the article aims at exploring motives of becoming a social worker and future aspirations, let us take a closer view of research on student's motives.

One way of studying students’ motives is to compare intrinsic and extrinsic motives of studies (Aittola, 1995; Bogler & Somech, 2002). The intrinsic motive focuses on learning for its own sake, for expanding the knowledge of the students. The extrinsic motives are related to the goal of the examinations, the career and a more pragmatic use of knowledge. According to Aittola (1995), university students in general are more instrumentally oriented since they aim to obtain their degrees fast and with ease. Other studies show that the students’ reasons for entering university studies were focused on such motives as getting away from parental control and having an attractive social life. In a study by Bogler and Somech (2002) that included social work students from an Israeli university, four kinds of motives were identified and categorised under three headings: instrumental – for those mostly focused on getting a useful education; scholastic – for those driven mostly by academic reasons and collegiate – for those interested in the social life at the university. This study also measures the extent of socialisation at the university. Socialisation was seen as a continuous learning process in which the members become members of a specific group and internalise certain norms and a certain culture. Their findings indicated that the actual socialisation into the group (in our case the profession) is more important than the motives to study per se, when it comes to the outcomes of the studies at the universities.

Values and personal orientations appear to be closely related to career decisions. Yael (1988) claims that social work students have values, attitudes and beliefs that are quite different from those of other students. People who choose to study social work at university hold different social and job-related attitudes from their colleagues who choose a general academic curriculum in social sciences. Social work students seem to be more altruistic or ‘other-oriented’, as opposed to students in other fields.

The main motives for embarking on a social work education (Hackett et al., 2003) are the intention to help people (84 per cent) and to have a stable job (32 per cent). In many countries, social work students tend to get jobs within their study area. In the United Kingdom, 93 per cent of those who qualified from social work education worked within the area 1 year later (Wallis-Jones & Lyons, 2003). Similar high numbers were found in a study in Sweden, where the social work students also stay in the profession, over 80 per cent were still active in social work 20 years after completion of their education (Kullberg, 2013).

A study comparing students’ motives for becoming social workers in Italy and Sweden turned up more commonalities than differences (Fortunato et al., 2007). The most common motive was to work with and support people. One of the differences between the two student groups was that social work students in Italy were more inspired by different ideological convictions (religion, politics) than their Swedish counterparts. A comparison of the students’ work preferences showed that the Italian students preferred to work with children, youths and families and put the elderly and immigrants at the bottom of the list. The Swedish students preferred to work in individual and family therapy and also had a strong preference for working with children, in school social work and with families. In one of the few studies on social work students’ motives and interests in China, Sha, Wong, Lou, Pearson, and Gu (2012) indicate the five most preferred client groups as: abused or neglected children; clients experiencing a turbulent adolescence; college students in emotional crises; people in poverty and juvenile status offenders.

A number of studies exist on the backgrounds of social work students. In most countries, women constitute a significant majority among social work students. Hackett et al. (2003) report that approximately 8 or 9 out of 10 social work students in Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom, and around 50 per cent in Slovenia are female. Other studies have also shown a higher percentage of female students in social work (Campanini & Frost, 2004, for different European countries; Daniel, 2011, for the United States). The median age of first-year students differs between 20 in Slovenia and 28 in the United Kingdom (Hackett et al., 2003). Other background factors, such as social class, also influence the choice of careers. It has been pointed out that social work, as an academic discipline, tends to attract people from a lower socio-economic background than other professional schools (Golden, Pins, & Jones, 1972; Moriarty & Murray, 2005). Still, in many countries there is a mismatch between the social workers and the clients. In the United States, for instance, the social workers are typically a white female from a city, while the clients served are often non-white minority groups (Daniel, 2011). A question for this study is to find out if gender and background (rural or urban) will have a bearing on their motives to become a social worker.

Looking back at theories for the sociology of the professions, a feature of all professions is to enhance their status and power and to strive for professional discretion (Abbott, 1988). Another question is if the strive for professional discretion can be detected in Ugandan social work students’ views on their motives and professional aspirations.

Research methods

In order both to have an overview of motives and career choices from many students and to get more detailed reasoning around these choices, this study uses a mixed method approach with both a survey and two focus group discussions (FGDs). The intention was to find a substantial sample of social work students who in a survey could present their motivations and career choices and then, at a later point, to have students’ reflections on the choices in order to gather a more in-depth understanding of the reasoning behind the choices. Therefore a survey was presented to social work students at Makerere University. Starting with the survey, a questionnaire was used. As some of the questions reveal information concerning the participating students’ private lives, their right to be anonymous must be guaranteed. Ethical approval from the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) was obtained.

In order to collect data, we decided to use a convenience sample, including a group of students that freely volunteered to participate. We wanted to approach students who had taken more than half of the social work programme and who were available for us to reach. The students were contacted and informed by their class representatives 2 days in advance about the time and place for answering the questionnaire, and that their participation was optional. During 1 day, in mid-March 2014, the questionnaire was distributed directly after two lectures among day students in their second or third year in the SWSA programme. Before the students started to fill in the questionnaire we informed them about the aim of the study and the questionnaire, and that participation was voluntary. In total, 149 students out of approximately 250 informed students volunteered to fill in the questionnaire. The response rate is approximately 60 per cent.

The questionnaire included 72 questions. It was organised in different sections and this article deals mostly with questions on motivations and expectations after completion of university studies. The calculations are based on bivariate frequencies, comparing gender, different forms of sponsorship and geographical background for the students. In the calculations, we have regrouped the students into two types of sponsorships – public and private. To be placed in the group with public sponsorship means that the student has one of the three different forms of public sponsorship. We have also made comparisons between students from rural or urban background. This is common in the Ugandan context since people from rural areas often have larger extent of illiteracy, less education background and more difficulties to access higher education than people from an urban background.

In the survey, students answered three pre-set clusters of questions about motives to study social work, interest in working in certain work areas and perceptions about the status of different work areas within social work. In order to make comparisons with previous studies, the motives as well as work areas were influenced by studies reported in the literature review. That is the reason why some questions have a four-point scale and others a five-point one. We are aware of the challenges of doing so, since the organisation of social work is not the same in Uganda and in European countries. One example of this is the perception of school social work. To some extent, these matters were discussed in the FGDs in order to get a better understanding of the differences and on the grounds on which the social work students related to these questions. It is important to stress that the study measures perceived status of different work areas among the students. It does not attempt to describe the status in any other way.

The FGDs were held at the university 1 year after the questionnaire was collected, one afternoon in mid-March 2015, after ordinary class was completed. The intention was to have a more detailed and in-depth discussion about motives and career choices. Another intention was to have student's opinions on the general findings from the survey as well as to find out how thoughts about career choices had developed after leaving the university. The students in the classes that took part in the questionnaire in 2014 were asked if they wanted to participate. The FGD only included a small number of the students that participated in the survey, and we do not know in what way they represent different subgroups of the survey. A couple of students had already graduated, which may have influenced their opinions. We have noted this in relation to quotations from the participants. Two FGDs were held, approximately one and a half hours each. In the first group there were 10 participants, and in the second 8. Some prompting questions about the motives for embarking on social work education and career wishes were asked, but then the participants narrated and discussed with one another. The FGDs were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were read and re-read by the authors and then analysed with the help of thematic analysis, where content has been coded in relation to the research questions as well as from themes stemming from the empirical material itself (Bryman, 2012).

This study holds some challenges that must be addressed. The choice of students was made in order to reach a substantial group of students. We do not know if this particular cohort holds the same motives and aspirations as other cohorts. When working with a sample of this size, it is important to acknowledge that the sample is self-selected and not random, results should not be generalised, although they will give some ground for tentative explanations.

In the qualitative FGD, time had passed after the survey, some students had already finished their studies. Therefore, additional social work experiences besides the educational one informed their reasoning. Therefore, we acknowledge the impact of both social work education and, in some cases, experiences of social work practice or from unemployment, in the reflections from the students. We have tried to highlight their current situation when presenting quotes from the students.

Findings

Who are the students?

The median age in our sample is 22 years, which corresponds closely to the mean age of a Makerere student (Makerere University Fact Book, 2013/2014). The largest proportion of students in our sample had the Central region (37 per cent) as their geographical background and the smallest proportion of students came from the West Nile region (5 per cent) and the Southwest region (4 per cent). This geographical distribution corresponds well to the Ugandan population in general (Uganda Bureau of Statistics-Uganda Population Census, 2014). The gender division in our sample is 44 per cent male and 56 per cent female, which is the opposite of the gender division at Makerere University² but corresponds well to the gender division among social work students at Makerere. More than half (55 per cent) of the social work students come from urban or semi-urban areas, and in this way differ from the general population in Uganda, where the majority of the population live in rural areas (National Planning Authority-National Development Plan, 2010-2015). Also in other disciplines, more students come from urban settings compared to the population as a whole, and this may be related to the difference in the level of educational attainment between rural and urban settings in developing countries (Makerere University Fact Book, 2013/2014). In our sample, 68 per cent of the male students had public sponsorship compared with 39 per cent of the female students. Students with a rural background benefited from the bulk of the public sponsorship, with female students standing at 53 per cent and male ones at 57 per cent. The inverse percentage characterises students who are privately financed, with a majority of the male and female students with an urban background being privately financed.

Motives to become a social worker

The motives were ranked on a scale of ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’. In Table 1, the students have been divided into three separate groups: by gender, geographical background and sponsorship. The results presented in Table 1 combine the responses of ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’. The results show that the most common motive was to help people, followed by working with people. The religious motives and political motives have the lowest rank. Religious and political motives are ranked very low while issues such as fighting poverty and injustice are much higher. This indicates that fighting poverty and injustice is not considered to be a political motive but rather a professional one.

Table 1. Students’ reasons for starting SWSA studies and ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’ with the statement (per cent within each group).

	By gender		By geographical background		By sponsorship
	Male (n = 66)	Female (n = 83)	Rural (n = 64)	Urban (n = 82)	Public (n = 77)	Private (n = 71)
To work with people	86	90	94	84	91	87
To help people	85	89	92	84	91	84
To fight poverty	76	71	80	70	70	77
To be able to work with social work in the future	76	81	84	74	82	75
To fight injustice	74	73	78	71	75	73
To be able to get any good job in the future	71	76	75	73	74	73
To get an academic degree	59	71	62	70	66	65
Religious motives	18	24	23	21	22	21
Political motives	12	8	8	11	9	11

When looking closely at the three groups according to gender, geographical background and type of sponsorship, we do not find very many differences according to gender except for ‘to get an academic degree’, where 71 per cent of the female students ‘strongly agreed’ and ‘agreed’ with that statement, compared with only 59 per cent of the male students. Students from a rural background seem to have stronger reasons than students from urban background for ‘to work with people’ (94 per cent compared with 84 per cent) and ‘to help people’ (92 per cent compared with 84 per cent). In relation to sponsorship, we do not find any particularly large differences between the two groups.

In the FGDs, the students had the opportunity to give a fuller picture of how different motives intersect with each other and how personal experiences from their previous lives often affect their reasons to start on a social work education. A male student says:

I grew up from rural setting and I used to see how things were tough in the village; we used to experience very hard moments as young children. I used to see how parents and relatives could hustle, there were a lot of children being neglected, dropping out of school, teenage pregnancies and so many other social problems […] when I looked around I said what could be the best way of coming and transforming this kind of society I am living in … (Male participant 1, FGD, recently graduated social worker)

However, some of the participants in FGDs mentioned other motives. For instance, some participants revealed that studying social work was not necessarily out of their choice, but was dictated by circumstances beyond their control. To some, it was either due to the fact that a government scholarship was available or because it was the interest of their sponsor. Others noted that they were influenced by teachers, friends and relatives.

I always wanted to either become a doctor or an engineer, at Advanced level (A-level) I took physics, economics, mathematics and entrepreneurship expecting to do an engineering course at university. I passed very well and I expected to get government sponsorship for an engineering course […] but it so happened that when the lists for district quota (sponsorship) were out I saw my name in the SWSA course. I went ahead to offer social work but I didn't know anything about social work … (Male participant 2, FGD, current third year)

Furthermore, the FGD participants discussed how political and religious motives never came to be considered among their major motives to do social work despite the fact that social work is often described as a value-based profession and works with the effects of political decisions.

For me I believe it is a feeling and a belief as social workers that we cannot go beyond our level. For example, the case of Uganda we may think about it that we can do something to influence the ruling government because when you look at service delivery it enters into politics …  (Male participant 3, FGD, current third year)

Interest in different social work areas and the status of these areas

Students were asked to give their views on their interest to work in 12 given social work areas. The results in Table 2 combine data from students who reported they were ‘very interested’ and ‘interested’ in the respective social work areas divided according to gender. A majority of both male and female students would want to work in any of the named social work areas and ‘social work in general’ (90 per cent), ‘child welfare’ (83 per cent) and ‘outreach work and social development’ (82 per cent) scored highest.

Table 2. Students’ interest in different fields of social work and ‘Very interested’ and ‘Interested’ with the statement (per cent within each group).

	Male students (n = 66)	Female students (n = 83)	Total
Social work in general	91	88	90
Child Welfare	82	84	83
Outreach work and social Development	82	82	82
Therapy and family law and counselling	80	84	82
Health sector	82	76	79
Education and research	82	66	74
Probational social work	77	71	74
Disabilities	68	70	69
Elderly	67	65	66
Local welfare office	73	57	65
Alcohol and drug treatment	64	59	62
School social work	62	53	58

The interest in general social work may be linked to the emphasis of the social work curriculum of Makerere University on generalist social work practice and development social work. There is an inclination in the curriculum towards social development as well as community development because of its relevance to several social problems such as poverty, violent conflict and weak governance (including corruption) and leadership facing the Ugandan communities. Until recently there has been relatively limited focus on remedial social work. One participant in an FGD stated the following:

To me my major interest is in poverty eradication because I have interest in working with the local government service delivery system because I worked with the local government during my internship and I was not happy with looking at how people embezzle funds, services delivery whereby people remain poor yet programmes are in place to eradicate poverty … (Male participant 4, FGD, current third year)

The interest in child welfare is similar to the results of other studies that have ranked working with children and families high (Fortunato et al., 2007). This is mainly explained by the age factor; it may be perceived that it is easier to work with people when you are still young. However, in the Uganda context, it is also plausible that the influx of many NGOs and CBOs working on children issues that have offered a considerable number of student's internships may have swayed their interests toward child welfare. The orphans’ crisis that arose from the high prevalence of HIV and AIDS in the mid- and late 1990s could also explain this interest in child welfare issues (Bukuluki, 2010).

In Table 3, the results from two questions are combined. The questions asked were: ‘In what social work and social administration area are you interested in finding a job?’ and ‘What do you think is the social status of social work and social work administration work in different areas?’ Each question had five alternative answers from which the student had to pick one: ‘very high interest’, ‘quite high interest’, ‘neither high nor low interest’, ‘quite low interest’ and ‘very low interest’. Each answer was coded from 5 to 1. The mean is presented in Table 3. The same procedure was used in relation to the question on perceived status where very high status was coded as 5, quite high status as 4, etc.

Table 3. Interest to work in different areas and the perceived status of these areas (order by the student’s interest, mean and rank order).

Working area	Interest to work rank	Mean	Perceived status rank	Mean
Highest interest
Social work in general	1	3.7	3	3.3
Child welfare	2	3.5	2	3.4
Outreach work and social development	2	3.5	4	3.3
Therapy, family law and counselling	2	3.5	1	3.4
Middle interest
Health sector (including work with HIV and Aids)	5	3.3	6	3.2
Probation social work	6	3.2	4	3.3
Work with disabilities	6	3.2	8	3.1
Education and research	8	3.1	7	3.1
Lowest interest
Work with the elderly	9	2.9	11	2.9
Alcohol and drug treatment	10	2.8	10	3.0
Local welfare office	10	2.8	9	3.1
School social work	12	2.6	12	2.5

The results show that there was a positive relationship between interest and perceived status of the social work area. Those areas that scored high on interest were also rated highly in terms of status. An example is child welfare, which the students rated as belonging in the top interest and status domain of social work in Uganda. The middle interest areas are health social work, probation social work, education and research, and work with disabilities. Although there is no statistical evidence, working in the health sector has increasingly become popular and attractive to social workers in Uganda. Results from FGDs also shed light on the growing popularity of social work in the health/medical field.

For my case I think my issue is different from others … , when we went for internship I think have been in hospitals for two years and this time still it was the hospital I was given for internship (laughter …), so I think I am more in health issues … I think I will be in hospitals. (Female participant 1, FGD, current third year)

Whereas working in the health sector is quite popular with social work students, the FGDs indicated that some social workers/students were sceptical about the possibility of accessing jobs in the medical field given the few slots that the sector allocates to social work professionals.

When I did my internship first I went to Butabika National Referral Hospital dealing with the mentally ill patients …  Most people think that I am crazy because they are like, how can you want to work with mentally ill people but there is something special about these people, especially the Rehabilitation Centre which treats addicts. I have been with addicts even up to now […] About the job … Yeah, I’m not sure I will get the job but at least I think in future … I can start a place of my own where I can deal with such people if at all I don't get the job. (Female participant 2, FGD, recent graduate)

As shown in Table 3, working with the elderly, at the local welfare office, in alcohol and drug treatment and in school social work counted among the lowest interest areas. Notably, the students also scored these areas as the lowest status ones. This closely follows the pattern from students in other contexts with one anomaly. Among Ugandan students, school social work scored the lowest of all areas, both in terms of interest and in terms of status. Among, for instance, Swedish social workers, this work area is very popular and the students rank it among the highest areas to work in, despite the fact that social workers (and social work students) perceive it as a middle-ranked status area within social work (Fortunato et al., 2007). However, findings from FGDs with students revealed that few participants associated themselves with school social work. Various reasons were provided by participants in the FGDs regarding their attitude towards school social work. The reasons include lack of school social work practice and fear about low pay. Also cited was failure to teach school social work at the university:

I think here in the African setting social work is not recognised in schools. (Female participant 3, FGD, recent graduate)

Future job expectations

Lastly, the students were asked to describe their job expectations. The study sought to establish if the students thought they would get a job and if it would be in the social work domain within 1 year of completing their social work education.

The results show, in Table 4, that 95 per cent of the social work students thought that they would get a job (permanent or temporary) after university graduation. Among those who expected to get a job, two out of three thought it would be temporary and almost one out of three thought they would get a permanent job. These results suggest that opportunities for university graduates to find employment are perceived to be high, given that less than 5 per cent thought that they would be unemployed. Ugandan urban youth are more likely to be unemployed than rural (12 vs. 3 per cent). On the other hand, persons with education above secondary level are more likely to be in waged employment compared to persons with primary education (59 vs. 18 per cent) (Ahaibwe & Mbowa, 2014, AAU, DRT, UNNGOF, 2012, p. 27).

Table 4. Expect employment after graduation.

	Permanent		Temporary		Unemployed		Total
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%
Total	45	30	96	65	7	5	148	100
Men	24	37	37	57	4	6	65	100
Women	21	25	59	71	3	4	83	100
Rural	20	32	41	65	2	3	63	100
Semi-urban	10	35	16	55	3	10	29	100
Urban	15	31	36	64	2	4	53	100

Gender variations in responses were noted with respect to expectations to acquire a permanent job. The male students seemed to be a little more optimistic to get a permanent job (37 per cent) in comparison to the female students (25 per cent), with the differences being limited between students with rural or urban upbringing. This is similar to other studies stating that female youth are more likely to be unemployed than male (Abaibwe & Mbowa 2014).

When the respondents were asked about their expectations to find a job within the social work professional domain within 1 year of graduation, fewer than 40 per cent thought they had high chances of getting a job within the social work domain (see Table 5). One out of five (20 per cent) thought the chances were low. The female respondents exhibited higher expectations to get a job within the social work domain than men. Similarly, urban students were more optimistic than rural and semi-urban with respect to getting a job within the social work domain.

Table 5. Chances of getting a job within 1 year of completing education within the field of social work (in per cent).

	High	Medium	Low	Total
Total	38	42	20	100
Men	30	41	29	100
Women	45	43	20	100
Rural	32	45	22	100
Semi-urban	36	45	15	100
Urban	47	40	13	100

Whereas the findings of the survey indicate some optimism about future job expectations, to the contrary, the FGDs revealed a lot of doubt about any job in the future, particularly in the field of social work. Most of the adverts for would be social work jobs like probation and social welfare officers tend to also be open to almost all the other social science disciplines. Also when students go for internships, they are shocked to learn that some of their agency supervisors did not actually study social work by training. A male, recently graduated student expressed his thoughts thus:

… social work is misunderstood amongst most of us in Africa especially in Uganda; it is believed that anybody can do it, anybody in the village can be a social worker that is how they look at it. That is why so many people are questioning if social work is also a profession. So now because of lack of proper government platform […] to educate people about what social workers do and there are no proper jobs specified for social workers because now you find a person who did social sciences working as a probation officer […] (Male participant 5, FGD, recent graduate)

A female, recently graduated student expressed similarly thoughts:

… social work still remains unknown. They still take us as the helping profession and the other thing is competition. Many have talked about some people; they are sociologists but they pretend to be social workers […] The other thing is that even the body of knowledge of social work is still ill defined; that's why we see people graduate not knowing what we are supposed to do and that is why we see people graduating as social workers but wanting to be a banker … (Female participant 4, FGD, recent graduate)

With regard to the chances of getting a social work job after completing social work education, several ideas were shared by FGD participants in relation to the complexity of finding a social work job in Uganda. Students were quite less optimistic in relation to finding a social work job as their first job right after school. They were prepared and quite realistic to do any other jobs available as they try to find jobs that match their professional training in social work.

… the rate of unemployment is very high so there is no guarantee that immediately after my graduation I will be able to go for that specific job I want so you have to give it time. You try many organisations and we may end up going for any job that comes around. (Male participant 5, FGD, recent graduate)

Discussion

This study aimed to describe and analyse the characteristics, motives and future professional aspirations among a group of social work students at Makerere University in Uganda. We need to keep in mind some challenges when trying to compare professional attributes from one country to another – especially when the economic, political and social situations differ to a great extent. It is an often claimed position that activities such as social work differ in relation to their contextual conditions. Still, sociology of the professions has given us some instruments when analysing the development of a profession both in collective terms and for individuals involved.

The results show that the majority of social work students in our sample come from urban or semi-urban areas. This may be explained by the socio-economic status, given that more people in urban areas have higher education (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2014) and it is therefore likely that their children have better access to (higher) education and are likely to enter university. More than 4 out of 10 students are male, and male students are more likely to benefit from public sponsorship compared to female. The proportion of male students in Uganda is higher than in most countries in Europe (Hackett et al., 2003).

Ugandan students have a mixture of extrinsic and intrinsic motives. The extrinsic are very instrumental; it is about getting a specific job, with job possibilities and specific job features, such as helping people, working with people and fighting poverty. In this way, they resemble the European social work students based on a number of studies reported here. However, they also have intrinsic motives that are more scholastic in the sense that they do not really seem to mind acquiring a social work education, as long as it is a university one, and they do not seem to have clear social work plans. There seem to be several reasons for this, both those that can be linked to the history and situation of social work in Uganda, and also reasons linked to the scholarship system of the university. Some students choose a programme where they are certain to get a scholarship. This is quite different from the European situation studied before. Another commonality between the Ugandan students and previous studies from Europe is the tenuous link in value-based motives along political and religious lines.

There was generally a positive relationship between interest and perceived status of the social work area. Those areas that scored high on interest were also rated highly in terms of status. The similarities between the perceived status among social work students in Uganda and Sweden are striking. Therapy and counselling, working with education and research, and health social work were ranked high in both countries, while social work with the elderly, with abuse and with poor people and social assistance, ranked low. The one area that showed the greatest divergence in ratings is school social work, and the study shows it has to do with the lack of tradition of school social work in Uganda. On the whole, this follows a pattern known in many professions where professionals tend to move from general and regulated work areas with many clients to work in areas where professionals can execute a greater autonomy and professional discretion over working conditions, with fewer clients and less prescribed duties (see Abbott, 1988; Dellgran & Höjer, 2005; Kullberg, 2013).

Social work students in Uganda do not expect to get a social work job after their graduation as students would do in many European countries (Kullberg, 2013). This may seem contradictory to the previously described motivation for starting the social work education, but we believe it should not be. On the one hand, the presented expectations can be seen as an adaption to the factual situation in Uganda today. On the other, they can present a wish to see a change in the future. Here we believe the socialisation during the social work education has played an important part. Even if the expectations to get a job are higher among women than men, the overall picture is quite pessimistic. Fewer than half of the group expect to have a social work job 1 year after graduation. This may also affect the intake and the previously discussed motives to get a social work education. As a whole, this constitutes an important challenge for social work stakeholders in Uganda, be it representatives of the universities, of the profession or of government that expect social work to play an important role in the future development of Uganda. It has not been the aim to explore the welfare system or the profession of social work in Uganda as such, there are other who have tried to do this better (Spitzer et al., 2014; Twikirize, 2014). Still it is evident that the challenges of getting a social work job are linked both to the way welfare is organized and to the position of the social work profession and its different organisations. Today there is a huge increase of social work students at the university without a similar policy to develop social work organisations or on creating social work jobs. This is a threat to the position of the professional education if it is not expected to be an entry point to a profession.

Conclusion

Our conclusion is that the motives of social work students and their career wishes reflect important issues that need to be addressed in social work and social work education. Social work students in Uganda have many similar motives to become social workers as students in European countries. They also strive for positions in the social work profession that represent a high degree: a professional discretion and status. However, the possibilities to get such positions seem from this study to be limited. Still conclusions from the study must be considered to be uncertain due to methodological limitations described earlier. We however believe these findings can provide a good starting point for a larger and more representative study.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the two study representatives, Miriam Nnanyombi and James Bwogiwho, who helped us organise the data collection and focus groups, the students at Makerere University, Kampala, who participated in the questionnaire and focus groups and two anonymous referees that commented on a previous version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Paul Bukuluki (PhD) is an Associate Professor at Makerere University, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, School of Social Sciences. He is a Social Worker and Medical Anthropologist with interest in social protection, sexual and reproductive health, sexual and gender-based violence and health governance.

Staffan Höjer is a Professor in Social Work at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research focus is the development of social work knowledge, organisational development and professionalisation in social work. He is involved in PhD supervision in Sweden and Uganda and is a research associate at Stellenbosh University in South Africa.

Birgitta Jansson is a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Social Work, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her PhD is in economic history. Her research interests are in the fields of inequality, poverty and income distribution.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a small grant from a multidisciplinary cooperation programme called The Global University: Sustainable Development in the Victoria Lake Region, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Notes

1. http://news.mak.ac.ug/2014/07/makerere-university-district-quota-admissions-2014-2015

2. Makerere University Fact Book (2013/2014).