It is predictable that there will be difficulty prioritising goals in a society that has no integrating and commonly accepted ethos but tolerates an immense variety of beliefs, lifestyles moral standards and forms of art. The goals of education in such a society will themselves be plural and may be incompatible with each other (Goodlad, 1976: 6).
This aptly describes the plural nature of contemporary Aotearoa / New Zealand society, with its uneasy acceptance of the free market economy. Goodlad d istinguished four dominant goals that one might observe in practice. The first was "manpower planning" which is socially and politically defined and equips people with the knowledge and skills society wants. Courses were usually funded by government if they were developed as the result of manpower planning.5 The second set of goals, consumer goals, are socially defined by students and their parents seeking an assured career and the social status of a degree.6 Individual goals, where students want education in order to understand and critique their world, and to
. further their self-development form the third category of dominant goals and the fourth is that of academic goals which aim at scholarship (Goodlad, 1976: 6).
What authority can a university invoke in order to prioritise educational goals in a pluralist society? Goodlad concluded that there can be no absolute answer as to which goals should be given priority. Instead, the authority that can be mustered by the tertiary institution has to be that "of accepting and maintaining the tension between competing goals without burning the thread" (Goodlad, 1976: 15).
SIn Aotearoa /New Zealand this used to be the case but the funding base of education has
so that the subsidy is much reduced and students make an ever· increasing to the cost of
courses.
6 I give out endless information to prospective students and their parents and this is definitely a dominant
Goodlad's work is dated in that the funding base of tertiary education is changing. For example, in Aotearoa / New Zealand a struggle is taking place over whether tertiary education is a public good, in which case the state should fund it, or a private good, in which case individuals will be expected to take as much financial responsibility as possible for their own education. If it were conceded that tertiary education is a private good, the question then arises as to whether it should be those who pay for their education (students) or those who employ them (reaping the benefit of their investment in themselves) who should dictate, through the industry training organisations, what competencies they must acquire.
This leads me to introduce a possible further goal for higher education, namely, conscientisation. Conscientisation provides an opportunity to those who wish to take control of their lives in an exploitative world and recognises the potential of education for the self-determination of groups as well as individuals. It was cited as a new theme in social work education in 1972 (Ander-Egg, 1972) and represented the strong human rights element in
social work which now includes feminist and ethnic analyses (Munford &
Nash, 1994).
Social work has always acknowledged its dual function of social control and social liberation. There is a constant balancing act within the profession to practise accord ing to recognised ethical standards. The International Declaration of Ethical Principles states unequivocally that "Social Workers have a commitment to social justice" and "Social workers have the responsibility to devote objective and disciplined knowledge and skill to aid individuals, groups, communities and societies in their development and resolution of personal-societal conflicts and their consequences" (IFSW,
1994). At whatever level one considers, be it that of liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor, Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed or simply "Educating Rita", setting the goals for social work education within the tertiary sector is a challenge.
While education is not the lever for social transformation nevertheless transformation itself is an educational event. Transformation teaches us, shapes and reshapes us. Secondly, we are also convinced that education strongly helps to clarify, to unveil, the conditions we are in .... school reading is silent about the world of experience and the world of experience is
silenced, without its own critical texts (Shor, & Freire, 1 989: 134-135).
The categories and frameworks set out above offer a structure for considering how social work has been accommodated into the culture of Aotearoa/New Zealand universities and tertiary institutions. They provide a context within which to address the question of how a balance between the competing goals of manpower service planning, research, scholarship and professionalism and conscientisation has been negotiated and reworked over the years.
..
Universities have to be clear as to what they want to produce in their graduates. For social work departments in tertiary level institutions, this is a crucial matter, and right decisions are essential, since graduates will inevitably need to be able to work with a variety of vulnerable people. Effectiveness and competence, where relevant, become attractive and though they are in themselves means to an end, can acquire the status of ends in the context of professional disciplines. "It seems much easier to set goals for the training of the expert than for education in the humanities" (Goodlad, 1976: 8).
In its early days, the School of Social Science, Victoria University College Wellington, had a dedicated budget within Vote Education, which gave it a guarantee of academic freedom. There was a close association between the School's academic staff and those in the public service who sent them students. The two groups had singularly compatible views on what a curriculum for social work should be. There was no doubt among the staff that they were completely free as to what they taught and assessed a .H. Robb, pers. comm. 271411995, J.R. McCreary, pers. comm. 29/5/95).
The original curriculum for the Diploma of Social Science owes its origins, amongst other things, to "some tentative suggestions" presented to the NZCER Conference on social work education in 1943 by Professor H. E Field, an educational psychologist from Canterbury (Crockett, 1977: 4). Three executive members of the New Zealand Council for Education and Research Sir Thomas Hunter, president and subsequently principal of Victoria University College, Mr C E Beeby, the Director of Education, and therefore responsible for the Child Welfare Division, and Mr A E Campbell were instrumental in organising this NZCER Conference (Crockett, 1977: 3). In
those days it is fair to say that, as long as the University set the exams, they were regarded as the definers of knowledge. The alliance between the establishment and academia was sufficiently comfortable to be invisible. University staff were able to design their own curriculum and consulted informally with employers, but without the surveillance and industrial demands now in existence.
Three kinds of curriculum have been identified and it has been argued that they are present in every course of study. The first and most apparent is legitimate curriculum which is the public and recognised study programme. The "illegitimate curriculum" is the second. It is openly taught but unspoken. It is not assessed, lacking measurable behavioural obj ectives. Instead, it puts students in touch with their creativity, and personal development occurs. The third curriculum is hidden. It is the 1 1 curriculum of subtle socialisation" in which students learn approved values and attitudes (Bevis, 1988: 37). This has already been referred to and is certainly Significant for social work, where it is quite openly acknowledged that during their courses students are socialised into the way of thinking of the profession.
This analysis of layers of meaning in a curriculum is taken from a nursing milieu, but fits comfortably into the social work context. At the same time, it helps to explain the resistance, particularly, but not exclusively, among universities, to competency based training and assessment. Socialisation into the social work profeSSion has always been part of the professional education of social workers, while the need to put social workers in touch with their inner selves has also been accepted. This was an accepted state of affairs when the social work profession guided the curriculum and pedagogy of social work education. However, as the balance of power has begun to change and other bodies are gaining hegemony in this area, the question arises: are there illegitimate or hidden curricula within competency based education systems?
The call for competency, nationally and internationally, has come partly from employers and partly from practitioners and professionals. It has grown more insistent in the last decade, and the different interpretations of competency have generated some hard questions about how one defines competency and teaches it in such a way as to produce good practitioners.
Some would argue. that we do not know what competency really is. Does this signal course providers' desire for more autonomy over the syllabus? An edited review of research into competence in social work draws attention to the range of meanings conveyed by the term (Marsh & Clark,
1990). Does competence refer to being "only just good enough" or to having
a reliable set of basic and sufficient skills for the job? Competence is recognised as making sense only in relation to specific practices and the task of measuring it has been likened to the feeling that one is "shooting at a moving target " (Stevenson, 1990: 15 ) because social service practices change
to keep pace with new ideas and situations.
The British Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work [CCETSW] made explicit the depth and breadth of knowledge, skills and personal qualities needed for a competent social service worker. However it tried to avoid the shopping list approach in a tacit acknowledgment that, while we need to teach theories, we do not know enough to prescribe theories (Stevenson, 1990). This important truth was recognised by the New Zealand Association of Social Workers and the NZCETSS, who both wanted it to be reflected in the unit standards for the NZQA framework. This is discussed in detail in a later chapter.
Gonczi has described the main definitions of competency based education (CBE) and the arguments for and against it. He describes three forms of competency based education, the first being task-based, or behaviourist assessed by direct observation of performance. This usually occurs in an agency setting. The second form is the underlying attributes approach, in which the competent practitioner will have certain general attributes, such as knowledge/ critical thinking. Here, assessment is not context specific and some people question whether generic competencies actually exist. Gonczi's third and favoured form is the integrated approach, which takes into account both the qualities and attributes of candidates and their ability to perform. It acknowledges the complexity of combining knowledge, skills and performance. Professional judgement is recognised and: "in this approach to assessment there is an emphasis on a great variety of evidence, more direct evidence" (Gonczi, 1993: 10). Gonczi favours the integrated model, arguing that it has a more flexible approach and incorporates the best elements of the other approaches (Gonczi, 1993).
This is the model being used in Australia. Gonczi recognises the criticisms about employer driven training, assessment techniques and how they determine the shape of things and the risk to critical thinking, but also points to advantages such as public recognition for the professions once their work becomes more transparent. For him, competence d oes not simply mean performance. It includes knowledge and he has confidence in the existence of suitable ways to assess knowledge. He argues that appropriate methods of assessment can improve courses (Gonczi, 1993). Gonczi agrees that assessment remains an art:
a competency is a combination of attributes underlying some
aspect of successful p rofessional performance. Thu s
competence is a construct that is not directly observable, rather it is inferred from successful performance (ibid, 1993: 9).
Clearly, Gonczi is in favour of this form of competency based education. Others, in the UK and in New Zealand have reservations. In particular, there are concerns about student assessment which needs careful handling. One way to introduce objectivity into it, is to break the student exercise into discrete tasks or goals and to measure these individually. This solution needs to be conducted sensitively, to avoid the temptation of restricting the curriculum to what can be measured. This point was raised when the Department of Social Welfare, New Zealand Children and Young Persons Service introduced its competency programme:
what emphasis will increased professional training of social workers take? The legislation is dependent on the quality, experience, skills and values of practitioners. If training becomes increasingly crisis-skills based at the expense of preventive and empowering skills, what definition of social work are we working towards? (Allan, 1992: 22).
The competency programme referred to has now been discontinued. The programme is discussed in more detail in Chapters Eleven and Twelve. The question raised in the above quote remains. Who will now be defining social work and how are practitioners to be prepared for their work?
In Aotearoa /New Zealand the notion of competency for social workers has its own history. The NZSWTC established a Competency Working Party in 1 982, which conducted workshops around the country in which
pra'ctitioners contributed their views on what knowledge, skills and values a competent social worker should have. The working party finally reported, posthumously in 1986, to the fledgling NZCETSS. Stevenson (1990: 16) noted the co-operative input from Pacific Island and feminist groups, as well as Pakeha, and surmised that the slim contribution on Maori competencies signalled ideological d ifficulties with the concept of competency and processes of research. In fact, the report "indicates that the authors of the Maori section were unhappy with the process and questioned their authority to speak for Maori on the matter. The fact that the Maori piece was included in the "Alternative Perspectives" section would not have helped. Perhaps, too, they sensed the contradictions between the competency philosophy (designed to serve the status quo) and that of community work (aimed at social action) (lssitt & Woodward, 1992: 51).
The NZASW competency assessment programme is one aspect of this movement and was described by Beddoe and Randal (1994). They record how it was introduced in response to the registration debate, as a means by which full membership of the NZASW could be determined (Beddoe and Randal, 1994: 27). This programme had several purposes:
To improve accountability to consumers, employers and the public; To develop New Zealand standards of practice; To improve the quality and efficiency of social work services; To assist with developing performance indicators and appraisals; To enhance social work credibility and strengthen the profession; To improve comp laints and disciplinary procedures (NZASW 1988: 23, cited by Beddoe and Randal, ibid: 28).
The competency assessment movement of the professional association of social workers was at the same time a strategy to increase membership of the NZASW which, in 1988, had reached a very low point. It was Merv Hancock who suggested the NZASW design its own measure of accountability and the competency assessment programme evolved.
The most recent and comprehensive manifestation of competency based teaching is the drafting of unit standards for registration on the National Qualifications Framework. This has been a long-drawn out exercise and one in which social work (through NZCETSS) has had to struggle to maintain a
leading role in order to preserve the prerogative of self-definition in the face of competition within the social services sector.
Academics and the social work profession now have to acknowledge the alliance between industry and the Government, which holds a measure of control over this matter through the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). The NZQA explicitly serves the interests of industry in making available a trained workforce. The NZQA approves the unit standards and national certificates and diplomas. This has implications as to who sets academic and professional standards. If the NZQA is to determine unit standards against which to measure competency, what are the implications for the setting of academic standards of knowledge and scholarship and is it likely that the hidden curriculum will foster the radical critique and structural analysis that community workers need to develop?