Glimpses on the Training of Social Affairs Specialists

Mr. Rifat Habbab is a specialist in social affairs, and in this article he offers sound views, gained from his long experience in important posts, which may well be worth lending some attention.

During the past ten years, a number of Eastern students from the various countries of the Middle East have enrolled in the schools and universities of England, where they took the social sciences as their principal study, and where a special program was applied to them, drawn up for students who wish to undertake social work, of a kind suited to the requirements of social service in the East.

1 — The Kind of Training

The purpose of sending most of these persons on missions to specialize in social matters is that they should return to take up important posts in their own countries. This being so, it was necessary that these young men and women be provided with a sufficient acquaintance with social and economic problems, and not merely with the ordinary training that concerns the social services.

2 — Specialization in Training

Each country determines the kind of work in which each of these students must specialize. Thus, for example, the Government of Palestine used to specify the kind of work for each student — as probation officer, specialists in juvenile reformatories, labor officers, etc. This served to bring peace of mind to the students. In the other countries, however, where the social services are still in their primitive stages, the students of those countries find themselves in constant anxiety when they see how exceedingly broad the program they are required to complete is.

When they finish their studies, the majority of Eastern students are employed in the urban areas, and few of them are employed in the rural areas; hence the scope for specialization in the work is far narrower than it is in the advanced countries.

3 — The Value of Special Training for the Eastern Students

There are evident drawbacks in separating the Eastern students, because the students themselves are at first suspicious of every attempt to separate them and to treat them in a special way — especially those who come from socially advanced countries. But since there is a broad program that can be completed in a short time, the benefit that comes from applying this method outweighs the harm that results from it.

The study of the social and economic affairs of the Near East is among the most important aspects of study in these fields, and so it is difficult to cover such studies without setting them apart.

It is likewise necessary to give the students additional lessons during the first year, and to have them attend the lectures; and they must work with extra diligence and energy in order to catch up with the students who are more mature, more aware, and older.

The Eastern students share with the ordinary students the general lectures on social affairs and services and their development, the growth of industry and agriculture, the history of social legislation, and the first principles of economics and psychology. They also attend more specialized lectures on the branches of the work they wish to take up, such as the guidance of juveniles, youth leadership, and labor administration. There is also a continuous course in comparative sociology, in which European and Eastern culture are studied comparatively on this subject.

The range of social conditions in any one of the large Arab countries is greater than its counterpart in any of the European countries, and the disparity in cultural level is greater in the East than it is in the West. Most Eastern students who are sons of the large cities are ignorant of much that concerns the rural areas. In truth there exists no adequate material on the social, political, and economic affairs of most of the Eastern peoples from which a suitable program of instruction could be drawn up.

There is also another difficulty: the majority of Eastern students have no strong motive for studying the affairs of their own countries, and the comparison between their culture and the culture of countries richer, stronger, better equipped, and more learned is often painful and a cause of resentment. The teacher's duty in such a case goes beyond having the students accept his lessons and his ideas: he must change the direction of the student's emotional and intellectual thinking, and bring them to realize that the sciences offered to them are not mere culture concerning countries whose conditions are difficult, but bear directly on the economic and social questions that will confront them when they return to their homelands.

We know that the Eastern lands are a wide field of religious and sectarian problems, and these problems must be treated with courage, by devoting lectures to this purpose and by giving the students the guidance suited to overcoming such phenomena, so that they may truly have rendered service in the social field.

4 — The Practical Section

The Eastern students must make visits to schools, clinics, hospitals, etc., and must spend a few months during their vacations in practicing the practical side of their study, whether by residing in a model village, or by joining a social institution, or a probation officer's office.

Experience has shown that the Eastern students must spend more time than is spent by the sons of the socially advanced countries, because they are ignorant not only of the institutions, but also of how these people live. The practical side of the study demands — of these Easterners in particular — special gifts, breadth of mind, an understanding of the basic principles, and experience.

5 — Toward Success

The success of the graduates depends entirely on the conditions prevailing in their countries, apart from the scholarly level and the social outlook they have acquired abroad. They must adjust themselves to the conditions in their countries upon their return. They are driven by the idea of creating new undertakings, and some of them find it hard to face the failure and the delay that are inevitable wherever the social services have not been fully organized. The situation grows delicate when these graduates find themselves more specialized than their superiors. It is possible, too, that they will be objects of admiration and esteem among their colleagues, and objects of fear and misgiving on the part of their superiors. In every case, the newcomers working in the field of social affairs stand in the utmost need of sympathy and guidance during the first months after they begin their work, if their success is to be secured.

The success of these students depends also on the organization of the administration and the social services in each country. Where we find that the superiors are specialized persons trained in this field, they will be able to guide those students.

We often find that work in the Eastern countries, and especially in the Arab states, is more difficult than in other countries, because work in those countries requires the creation of new projects and not the administration of projects already in existence; hence the worker in the social field is likely to be looked upon as a person who must know everything, and not as a specialist. It is not to be expected that the Arab individual can bear full responsibility in such circumstances, and it appears unreasonable that the Arab student should bear such responsibility. And if suitable trained supervisors are not available, it is to be expected that these students will find themselves not competent to fill the post of probation officer or school principal, etc. — or else that their qualifications are too high for them to fill purely clerical posts.