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Description

To scope and clearly define current and future needs for aquatic animal health training and for systems for merit-based accreditation and competency assessments.

Provision of high quality aquatic animal health (AAH) services is a complex multidisciplinary activity. Hence, training programs must address all discipline areas to achieve the desired outcome of robust service delivery to meet all stakeholder group needs. The current and future needs for AAH training have been identified across many sectors through survey work and direct interviews with key stakeholders. There is a shortfall in both total capacity and more prominently, in the availability of high skill level individuals within both laboratory and field service provision areas. It was widely recognised that many of the traditional pathways for training groups of such skilled individuals was through mentorship and self education within State and Commonwealth Governments. These are now severely restricted due to a changing role of Government and ongoing tightening of resources.

A significant proportion of all stakeholders felt that current Australian training opportunities were either completely absent or of insufficient depth. Therefore, to meet the identified needs of the stakeholder groups for AAH service delivery, significant changes to current AAH training practices in Australia are required. 73% of survey respondents felt that the demands for AAH services were likely to increase over the next 5-10 years, which will only exacerbate the currently recognised shortages.

Through discussions with an array of industry stakeholders across Australia there appeared to be sufficient training available for farmer level individuals but not for specialised AAH diagnostic professionals. It was apparent that not all aquaculture industry sectors, particularly the smaller emerging industries, were aware of the training opportunities available, suggesting an improved extension effort was required by providers at the Technical and Further (TAFE) Education institutions and universities.

The experience that fisheries and aquaculture industries have had with animal health service provision is remarkably different to that experienced by the established terrestrial animal production industries. Health services to fisheries and aquaculture, in many Jurisdictions and industries, have been viewed as a separate service area discipline to that of all other animal health services. This is an historical anomaly given the overlapping functions. Aquatic animal health services are in reality, a subset of Australia's animal health services. The reintegration into this larger area needs to begin with aquatic animal health training integrating with other animal health training, rather than being viewed as an entirely separate entity. The overlap of the skill sets is simply too great to justify entirely separate training programs for the range of disciplines involved.

ISBN

1 921258 02 0

Publication Date

3-2007

Series Number

18

Publisher

Department of Fisheries, Western Australia

City

Perth

Keywords

Aquatic animal health, Aquatic animal health accreditation, Aquatic animal health competency, Western Australia

Disciplines

Animal Diseases | Animal Sciences | Animal Structures | Aquaculture and Fisheries | Management Information Systems | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods | Marine Biology | Veterinary Medicine

Comments

FRDC Project No. 2005/641

Fisheries Research Contract Report No. 18 - Aquatic Animal Health Subprogram: Current and future needs for aquatic animal health training and for systems for merit-based accreditation and competency assessments (FRDC Project No. 2005/641) Final Report

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