‘Development has cost us environment’

Srinagar, Nov 18: The role of a veterinarian must not be just to treat animals, but to spiral changes that could remove the income inequities in the society through improved rearing and livestock practices, the Vice Chancellor of Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology Kashmir (SKUAST-K)Dr Nazir Ahmed Ganai said on Wednesday, while speaking on the two day brainstorming on Re-imagining Veterinary Education.

The brainstorming session recorded participation from SKUAST-K Alumni working abroad and in various parts of the country. Veterinarians, academicians, policymakers and representatives from many other sectors, including media discussed the issues faced by Veterinary and Animal Husbandry graduates in real-life scenarios, job markets and entrepreneurial ventures. Together, they embarked on the quest of revamping the veterinary education curriculum, degree design and advancement of infrastructure to match the passing out scholars with the changing global scenarios.

J&K currently has only two veterinary colleges, creating a severe shortage of geographically distributed institutions, especially for students from remote, tribal, border, and hilly districts. The experts said student interest in veterinary and allied sciences was rising, while there was a simultaneous increase in the opportunities where veterinary science and animal husbandry experts could render their service. However, there was a growing national shortage of veterinarians. India has 27,000 veterinarians, while an estimated requirement of 140,000 exists as per WOAH norms. Many experts presented statistics and graphical representation of data to depict and underline the global and national crisis in veterinary manpower.

The moot point of the brainstorming was that curriculum of BVSc and AH needs to be revamped in order to equip the graduates and prost-graduates with skills and certifications, in addition to accreditations that make them industry-desired.

Dr Bhanu P Chaudhary, Director of Molecular Cytogenetics Lab Texas A&M University USA gave an overview of the various Veterinary Science Education approaches and Methodologies across Europe, USA, New Zealand &Australia and East Asia. He compared the accreditation systems and weighed the adaptation of each one of these into the colleges and universities of India in order to upgrade the training and certification of the students here.

Dr Ganai, the Vice Chancellor presented Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry as an “equalising opportunity”. He said while India may have taken strides in many fields, including education, the fact remains that a vast proportion of population earns less than Rs 200 a day. “Through better animal rearing practices, we could help people earn a better income. As a veterinarian, we must not focus only on treating an animal brought to us, but to educate a farmer on how his or her income could get better: what feed to use, what breed to rear, what to do to prevent a disease,” he said. He said, at the same time, it was imperative that the Universities and institutions teaching agriculture and veterinary sciences safeguard ecology, environment and human health. “Our development has cost us many things, and one of them is the environment. We need to bring about a revolution to decrease the impact of human activities, impact of food production, on the environment,” he said.

The Strategic Framework for Reimagining Veterinary Education for Viksit Bharat @ 2047 prepared by Aijaz Ahmed Dar, Pavaiz Ahmed Dar and Nazir Ahmed Ganai was released on the occasion. The document weighs various education revamp approaches against each other, with an adequate description of each. The document also proposes the College of Veterinary Medicine, School of One Health, School of Wildlife Sciences, the College of Animal Sciences and Technology among other things.