Visitations

For a veterinary degree to be approved for registration purposes by the College, the course must meet RCVS criteria as well as UK and European legislative requirements.

We undertake formal visitations to veterinary schools to monitor the standard of approved degrees.

We also liaise with the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), which carries out quality assurance monitoring on behalf of the English and Scottish funding councils.

Veterinary schools were visited by QAA subject review teams during 1999 / 2000, and reports on the findings can be found on the QAA website.

In 2001, we collaborated with the QAA and the (then) six UK veterinary schools to produce the Benchmark Statement for Veterinary Science which describes what a veterinary degree should cover, lists the knowledge and skills included within the courses and also includes an early version of our 'essential competences'.

The statement includes expressions of the "professional / employment related abilities that graduates in veterinary science would be expected to have developed during their higher education and associated practice based experiences".

Following our visitation to a UK university, RCVS Council makes a recommendation to the Privy Council as to whether recognition should continue. For other non-European veterinary degrees, RCVS Council may recommend recognition directly.

On European educational issues, we liaise with the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), and with the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE) which conducts visitations to European schools.

The FVE and EAEVE websites contain links to all the veterinary schools in Europe, as well as providing more information on the evaluation systems employed.

Visitations to UK veterinary schools are usually undertaken jointly with EAEVE.

We have an agreement with Australia and New Zealand, to support the continued recognition of Australasian veterinary degrees.

An agreement is also in place between RCVS and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) to facilitate the recognition of AVMA approved qualifications.