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The new social work degree is expected to bring with it a sudden jump in the number of practice placement days for students. But with too few practice teachers and placements to go around, universities will have to look at other, more flexible, practice learning options. Natalie Valios reports.

Last year's announcement of a three-year social work degree to replace the Diploma in Social Work was welcomed by the social care sector, but as the starting date for the first intake of students draws nearer, some sticking points are beginning to emerge.

One of the biggest is the timescale for its introduction. In England, the new degree programmes could be running as early as September 2003. Wales and Northern Ireland are looking at September 2004, and although the date for the new degree in Scotland has yet to be set, it is also expected to be 2004. But universities in England will not know whether they have been accredited by the General Social Care Council to run a degree course until later this month.

The curriculum for the degree is also expected from the Department of Health later this month. It will combine two documents - the national occupational standards produced by training organisation Topss and the quality assurance agency benchmark statement from universities. The standards outline what an employer needs from a qualified social worker, while the benchmark statement sets out what areas should be included in social work education. The curriculum will be a single statement of the knowledge areas that need to be built into a social work programme, and the GSCC will be responsible for monitoring its implementation.

When the curriculum is published, it will finally clear up speculation over the balance the government wants to strike between college-based learning and placements. The figure being discussed is about 200 supervised practice days out of 450 days over the three years, says Arthur Keefe, chairperson of Topss and a member of the GSCC.

This represents a 50 per cent rise in the number of placement days, which currently stands at about 50 in a student's first DipSW year and 80 in the second. But this raises the problem of the continuing shortage of practice teachers.

According to Keefe, improving the quality and quantity of supervised practice is likely to be the biggest challenge for the new degree. Although more than 7,000 people in England have a GSCC practice teaching qualification, few carry on practice teaching for more than a year after qualifying. There are two reasons for the shortage of practice teachers - they are not paid enough nor do they get enough relief from their caseload.

About 8,000 practice placements are provided each year, half of them in councils. So where will the extra placements come from? A clue may be in the vague definition of "practice experience" used by the government when talking about the degree, says Mark Peel, director of social work studies at the Open University. This leaves room for approaches other than that of one practice teacher to one student, he says.

Peel foresees universities being expected to be more creative over practice learning. So the Open University's IT department has created an "all-singing, all-dancing high-tech way of doing it", he says. The OU has devised a practice environment database that allows students to make changes to a virtual community, so they can see the impact of their decisions.

"It's a good way to pick up practice skills as an alternative to placements," says Peel. "Combining this virtual practice with placements is likely to be the best way forward. Programme directors say they are finding it difficult to find placements for their students, so any model that supplements them with other ways of helping social workers gain the skills they need has got to be useful."

Another computer-based approach being explored by universities is e-learning, which overcomes problems of travel, location and time. And the wealth of placement opportunities on offer elsewhere - agencies that social work has dispersed to, such as the NHS, criminal justice agencies and primary care trusts, as well as the private and voluntary sectors - should not be overlooked either. A problem here, however, is that most voluntary organisations cannot afford to fund placements.

But Keefe is not concerned about the availability of appropriate funds: "I'm confident that additional funds will be made available by the DoH to match the increased practice learning requirements."

Some expect to see the re-emergence of practice learning centres. These were units where students were taught together, the idea being that this was cost-effective. But when the GSCC's predecessor, CCETSW, changed its funding arrangements for practice learning several years ago, it became clear that this had not been so.

Instead of signing individual contracts with the centres, CCETSW decided to distribute money to DipSW programmes to allow them to decide how best to use the money. Most stopped funding practice learning centres, choosing instead to purchase practice teacher placements directly with social services departments. So, with the loss of funding, most centres closed.

Julie Wilkes, operations manager in the social work, education and training division of the GSCC, says: "The majority chose not to fund these centres, which might indicate that they felt it wasn't the best use of funding."

The GSCC is not going to revert to the previous system of funding, so universities will have to work out the best ways of providing placements, Wilkes says. "Should the higher education sector wish to set up centres in tandem with those handling the funding, they will be at liberty to do so."

Wilkes is in favour of several options for practice learning, including the return of practice learning centres as long as they can be cost-effective. "I would be delighted if centres were to re-emerge because it would be a clear demonstration that organisations we work with are putting resources into practice teaching."

The Oxfordshire Practice Learning Centre is one of the old units formerly funded by CCETSW. Its funding now comes from Ruskin College, which runs a DipSW course, and Barnet House at Oxford University. It's a small outfit, with two part-time practice teachers, Cathy Lloyd and Dave Wysling, and takes 15 students a year.

The bulk of their work is finding suitable placements for students in the voluntary and community sectors. Like others, Lloyd is waiting to see what comes out of the curriculum. "There are still huge questions about how practice teaching is going to operate. We think some will be virtual placement learning, so not all of it will be in the field doing the job," she says.

"But the relationship an individual practice teacher has with their student is central to the learning process and we wouldn't want that to be taken away."

Peel believes that practice learning centres will become an important tool in helping to boost recruitment and retention. They are an attractive proposition to social services directors who want their unqualified staff to be trained, he says.

While most agree about the priority that should be given to high-quality practice learning, there are some who still want a debate over the balance between the amount of time spent in practice learning and gaining the underpinning knowledge. The problem here is that the balance varies for different groups of students, says Keefe. Some come on a social work course with very little academic background but with substantial prior experience, so they need plenty of opportunity to develop their knowledge base and cognitive skills. Others come with a social science background and need more opportunities to develop their practical skills. The difficulty is in designing a programme that reflects their different needs, he says.

"Personally, I'm not certain that 200 days is the right compromise," says Keefe. "I would prefer to see more emphasis on the classroom side of things. After all, the justification for moving from a two-year diploma to a three-year degree, particularly for non-graduate students, was primarily to allow more time for academic development."

While there is consensus for a range of practice learning options, the role of practice teachers remains vital, says Wilkes. "Students must have contact time with service users and be assessed on their capacity to carry out that work. Ultimately, nobody can be a substitute for a practice teacher."