This May, the World Organisation for Animal Health participated in “International Week – 2023” in Turkey and helped raise awareness of veterinary and veterinary paraprofessional education.
From 22 to 26 May Afyon Kocatepe University (AKU) implemented the event “International Week – 2023” for its partners within the programme “Erasmus+” where guests from different countries and universities participated. The Veterinary Faculty of AKU accepted guests from different foreign veterinary faculties and Sub-regional representation for Central Asia staff was also invited to take part in the event as recently participated in the Congress on Biological and Health Sciences conducted by this University with the presentation on “Role of WOAH in the harmonization of veterinary and VPP education in Member-countries”. Deans of some Turkish veterinary faculties during the Congress expressed an interest and were happy to get the link to the WOAH Terrestrial Animal Health Code and Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for terrestrial animals to use them for education purposes. In addition, the WOAH training portal and other WOAH guidelines related to veterinary and VPP education were demonstrated during the Congress.
AKU located in the town of Afyonkarahisar is a relatively new university and was founded in 1992. All faculties shape the single campus where teaching facilities and student dormitories are placed. Veterinary faculty units including clinics, laboratories, lecture halls, and administrative buildings are on the campus territory. A teaching farm with a large number of sheep, cows and buffalos is just a few kilometers away from the campus.
The faculty structure has a huge Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center with spacious fenced territories where fox, wolf, and wild birds were currently present as patients. A modern surgical operation room was in place in this unit where 3rd and 5th-year students during the visit were involved in emergency medicine.
In Türkiye the public Universities are under the direct power of the Government and not under the relevant Ministry thus having a certain level of independence.
Veterinary education in Türkiye is a 5-year programme to get a Bachelor’s degree and graduates can practice veterinary medicine right after registration at the local Veterinary Chamber. Registration is obtained only once and there is no need to reconfirm the level of competencies in the future. Licensing procedures for graduates to practice veterinary medicine and compulsory continuing education for veterinary specialists are not currently in place but professional training exists on a voluntary basis. To get a Master’s Degree Bachelor’s graduates have to study additional 2 years and for a PhD plus 3 more years. During the visit, it was a meeting with the Dean of the Veterinary Faculty and other staff who informed that in Türkiye there are 29 veterinary faculties with different numbers of students, for example, in AKU about 570 veterinary students in total accepting annually 82 applicants and in Ankara University much more (about 300 every year). AKU Veterinary faculty is interested in accreditation by the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE) and is now at the final stage of the new Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) construction that is supposed to launch in July. VTH is being built according to GMP and GHP standards with numerous surgery operation rooms for both small and farm animals and equipped with state-of-art diagnostic and treatment devices (e.g. CT, MRT, etc.).
In the structure of AKU 3 vocational schools are offering veterinary para-professional education and their duration is 2 years. One of these vocational schools was visited by the WOAH representative and a meeting was held with the Deputy-director of this school. The school annually accepts 93 new students, and the graduates receive a diploma of “veterinary technician” which work in private clinics and agriculture assisting the veterinarian in making vaccinations, artificial insemination (only after attestation), animal identification, etc. but under the supervision of a vet.
In Türkiye there are no veterinary pharmacies and veterinary medicine products are sold in veterinary clinics and only under prescription by vet. Teaching staff from the veterinary faculty is involved in VPP education giving lectures and practical lessons and AKU itself is in charge of developing a study curriculum for vocational schools training VPPs. There are no different categories of veterinary paraprofessionals and all have the same curriculum in all 3 vocational schools within AKU. The staff of the vocational school was not aware of the WOAH Guidelines on competencies and curriculum for VPPs and these documents were shared with them.
All visited staff were informed about the WOAH project on Veterinary Workforce Development and activities planned in the future. Some AKU teaching staff expressed an interest to be involved in WOAH activities as participants and also in the role of expert, e.g. recently one colleague from AKU was invited to the WOAH workshop “Biosecurity and good management on bee farms” as an expert.
WOAH representation for Central Asia would like to express its gratitude to AKU staff for the invitation to “International Week – 2023”, the high level of hospitality shown, and hope for future cooperation!
