Two new possible Vet Schools!

Recent news in the Veterinary Times reports that Aberystwyth University (Wales) and The University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) are looking to begin Veterinary Medicine degree's in the near future, a near as 2015!!!
It seems that Ulster are almost definite and will start the degree in 2015 and Aberystwyth are strongly considering it.

Thoughts?????

Do you think there will be too many graduates for jobs available? Possibly 10 Vet schools with their graduates, plus an increasing number of foreign Vets registering with the RCVS...

Do you think the RCVS and/or government should step in and put a cap on the amount of students accepted to study Veterinary Medicine or the amount of Universities that can offer the degree??

If you are for this, do you think they are the right Universities to offer the course?

Discuss!

Reply 1

aliceblue

Almost every week recently in the Vet Times there have been articles about whether there will be too many new grad vets for jobs in the near future.
I saw that headline on our delivery of them last week but they hadn't been put out in the staff room so I didn't get chance to read it and see which uni's it was talking about.
The article I read a week or two ago was discussing how new vets struggle to find equine jobs in particular. It also discussed the idea that if you look into the wider veterinary field there are many jobs available, in public health for example. But, as a vet hopeful myself and through talking to you guys I'm yet to find a prospective vet hoping to graduate and go straight into the food industry, or work for DEFRA etc. The impression that I get is that most people (myself included) do want to go into general practice, be it SA, farm or equine.
In comparison though, I think that if you compare this to unemployment/job shortages in general across the UK, vets will be in a much better position than a lot of other industries!
Graduate employment rates for vet med/sci are way up in the high 90%'s, so although new vet schools may see this figure decrease I don't think vets will struggle for a long time, we might just have to prove ourselves more at job interviews, or take jobs with less desirable hours etc - again something that (I hope) anyone applying to vet school expects to have to do at some point anyway!

Reply 2

Wyn1234

Why hope for a job with undesirable hours?

Reply 3

aliceblue

I wasn't hoping for unsociable hours, I was hoping that anyone applying to vet school expects to be working long/unsociable hours at some point during their career, because its pretty unavoidable, so if they were expecting 9-5 mon-fri they'd likely be in for a shock!

Reply 4

SilverstarDJ

This really angers me - people will end up dedicating so much time and effort and will struggle to get a job in the industry they want (for most of us, general practice). Its one thing if vet grads want to work in other areas of work and choose that sort of job e.g industry and another thing if they are forced to do so because they have no other choice.

The government wants as many people in uni so it decreases (youth) unemployment stats in the short term, in my opinion.

I think ALL uni places should be capped to reflect the job market, not just for vet med but for other degrees as well where too many graduates are churned out and end up depressed because they cannot work in their chosen field (I know plenty of friends who this applies to, sadly, especially with humanities degrees). Vocational, on the job /college-based training is being replaced with expensive university education (e.g. childcare studies). We can't afford to send everyone to uni just for the sake of it- uni should be about broadening horizons and increasing job prospects, not about going because "all of my friends are off to uni to have a good time" (hence a lot of students don't actually know what they want to study but pick a random course anyway). And in the mean time employers can pay apprentices a pittance which doesn't seem fair to me with the costs of living rising (it seems you can no longer be independent financially from 18 onwards like you used to).

I really fear for the future graduates of this profession and I am glad I will graduate when I will in an already saturated market rather than what we are heading to in the future... :frown:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 5

nox1

Original post by SilverstarDJ

I agree, it makes me sad they're opening more and more vet schools. :frown:

I've wanted to be a vet for as long as I can remember, and don't care that I'm going to have to work hard to earn my place at university, rather than there being so many that lots of people get accepted.
I'm really scared that I won't get a job when (and if) I graduate. :frown:

Reply 6

ch0c0h01ic

Original post by SilverstarDJ

It is a complicated issue...

Unfortunately the majority of the drive for new vet schools is not about politics or education but money. Veterinary science is massively oversubscribed and students will pay anywhere from £8,000-30,000 a year for tuition.

If you are a head of a university, have had your budget squeezed by the government and already run a Medical program creating a new vet school is a very lucrative option. While you need to invest in specialist staff and resources and lot can be shared from your medical program (eg; lecture space, teaching labs, DR rooms, pre-clinical staff, support staff, medical libraries, etc) creating an economy of scale.

As far as market saturation goes it depends on how you manipulate statistics and which sources you cite. The principal of Surrey for example was keen to point out that there was a shortage of large animal, abattoir and government vets but seemed to gloss over the fact that vets had been taken off the Home Office's occupation shortage list and that it was taking new grads progressively longer to find a good job. TBH if I was in there position and had that much money in the game I would behave in much the same way.

Long term it is going to get to the point where significant proportions of UK vet students graduate as veterinary surgeons but never work in such a capacity which I find very sad and very misleading for potential applicants.

I would argue that the focus should be on the quality of new vet graduates not the quantity. Now while all new grads that have signed the register are in theory day one competent there is a broad range between the "best" and "worst". Most vet courses still heavily rely on academic assessment and measures of skill which does not necessarily correlate with practical and vocational skills.

Sure getting more school leavers to go to university does distort unemployment figures but most of the drive for this current trend started under the last Labour government and before the last financial crisis. Depending upon your viewpoint you can either look at it as a cynical ploy to secure votes among school leavers with heavily subsidised university places for all versus an attempt to boost our economy by increasing the number of graduates entering the jobs market.

Now that has worked in places like China because they focused on the sciences and engineering which is useful to key industries. However over here all courses were given equal credence and funding regardless of the demand and calibre of the degree. It is a very noble idea but I have to say that it is not necessarily something I agree with. While there is a lot of opposition to the new tuition fee levels I suspect it will deter a lot of the people going largely "for the experience" and encourage people to think a lot harder as to what they want to do with their life rather than simply running up big debts with the government/SLC studying what they enjoy.