REVIEW OF VETERINARY EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Please note that the deadline for submissions to the Review of Veterinary Education has been extended to Friday, 18 November 2022. Submissions should be emailed to .
Documents for download
Download the Review Terms of Reference
Terms of reference
VSANZ has commissioned a comprehensive review of veterinary education in Australia and New Zealand. The review will address the following questions:
- What are the key skills, knowledge and attributes that veterinarians will need in the next decade? How can accrediting bodies, the profession, Australasian universities and governments work more effectively together to ensure that students leave veterinary schools equipped with transferable competencies needed for long and successful careers as veterinarians, as well as take account of the continued financial pressures faced by universities to sustain high-quality veterinary science programs?
- Looking ten years out, what are the key challenges and opportunities that veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand face in terms of their responsibilities to educate and train their future veterinary workforces? What needs to change to ensure the schools can address the identified challenges and take advantage of the opportunities over the next decade? Specifically:
- What opportunities are there for structural reform to make Australasian veterinary schools financially sustainable? What have been the key learnings from the disruption to veterinary schools caused by COVID-19?
- Is there a place to develop a new kind of professional Australian and/or New Zealand veterinary qualification, which has modularisation/specialisation (e.g. companion animals, livestock, equine, poultry, exotic) options – whether at an early or post-primary-qualification stage – focused on the requirements of the nation? If so, how should this be achieved?
- Can we make changes of the kind described above and still retain the ability of Australia and New Zealand to contribute to a global, mobile veterinary workforce with mutual recognition of qualification and freedom of movement, that is, to continue to attract overseas students and practitioners?
- How strong is the research performance of Australasian veterinary schools in the global context? What is the nexus between a veterinary school’s research capability and its capacity to educate veterinarians suited to the modern workforce? What could be done to optimise the education / research mix of veterinary schools?
The full Terms of Reference for the review can be downloaded from the link above.
Panel
The review is being conducted by an expert panel comprising:
– Dr Helen Scott-Orr AM PSM (Chair) – former Chief Veterinary Officer of NSW, Hon. Associate Professor University of Sydney and Australian Inspector-General of Biosecurity.
– Professor Grant Guilford – former Head of the Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences, Massey University and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington, current Chair of the New Zealand Veterinary Association.
– Professor Susan Rhind– Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chair of Veterinary Medical Education and Director of Veterinary Teaching at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh.
Discussion paper
A discussion paper, ‘Rethinking Veterinary Education’, has been drafted by the expert panel. This paper aims to canvass stakeholder ideas on if and how veterinary education must change to meet the foreseen demands of the next decade and beyond. The discussion paper can be downloaded dfrom the link above.
Making a submission
The Discussion Paper contains questions that include and expand upon those asked in the review Terms of Reference. Although these are broadly categorised into stakeholder groups, many questions are relevant to multiple stakeholders who are free to comment on any questions, not just those appearing in their stakeholder section. Parties wishing to make a submission to the review need not address every question.
The deadline for submissions has been extended to Friday, 18 November 2022. Submissions should be emailed to .
Contacting the review panel
If you would like to contact the Review Panel, please email the Review Secretariat at or phone Bernard Rupasinghe on