East Asia sub-regional meeting on veterinary education and workforce development

Sub-regional Meeting for Veterinary Education Establishments (VEEs) and other Stakeholders of Veterinary Workforce Development in East Asia

Veterinary education establishments (VEEs) are key stakeholders in veterinary workforce development and contribute to ensuring the effectiveness of veterinary professionals and delivery of competent Veterinary Services (VS). World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE) has held four Global Conferences on veterinary education since 2009 and has developed recommendations and guidelines on pertinent topics such as “WOAH Competencies of ‘Day 1 Graduates”, ”Veterinary Education Core Curriculum”, as well as active programmes including “Veterinary Education Twinning.” More recently, WOAH has developed Programme for Workforce Development as a component of the PVS Pathway, WOAH’s flagship capacity building platform. The recommendations from the 2nd OIE Regional Workshop for VEEs and VSBs held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2018, included strengthening VS through WOAH standards and guidelines, improving curriculum development, facilitating in-country communication and collaboration among stakeholders, and collecting reliable data to identify and address veterinary workforce demand.

The 2nd OIE Regional Workshop for VEEs and VSBs also recommended WOAH to provide a platform to encourage communication at the sub-national level in addressing issues related to Veterinary Education, especially for East-Asia sub-region where no sub-regional association exists. Therefore, a sub-regional workshop for VEEs in East Asia was organised on 11th September 2023 in association with the annual meeting of Asian Association of Veterinary Schools (AAVS), 12^th September – 13^th September in collaboration with Hokkaido University, Japan.

The objectives of this meeting were:

to introduce WOAH initiatives and activities on veterinary education and Veterinary workforce development in particular recent developments;
to discuss and identify ways for VEEs to contribute to strengthening of national Veterinary Services;
to provide a networking opportunity for champions from VEEs and Veterinary Services in East Asia to share experiences and build or strengthen collaborative relationships;
to provide a forum for representatives from different sub-regions in Asia and the Pacific to share experiences, challenges and updates related to establishing VEE networks.

The meeting was held via a hybrid modality. Several VS and VEE representatives from each Member in East Asia were invited to join the meeting physically and other VEE and stakeholder participants were invited to join the presentation session remotely. In addition, several participants representing VEE networks from other sub-regions of Asia and the Pacific were invited to share their experiences with East Asian VEEs and veterinary workforce development stakeholders.