The Erasmus project ‘Vocational Education and Training for Veterinary Nurses’ (VET4VN) came up after previous cooperation of six schools in four countries, which offer vocational education and training of Veterinary Nurses (VN) at EQF level 4. The project partners met at VetNNet conferences. They shared worries and needs to improve. And this cooperation led to the Vet4VN project application.

However, in previous 2-3 years, the work field of the Veterinary Nurses is changing at an incredible speed. Big changes are seen in technology, medications, ICT innovations, role of the clinics in human health, and customer behavior. Veterinary clinics merge to large international conglomerates, which demand highly educated Veterinary Nurses in all countries, regardless differences in educational systems.

With the Vet4VN project we want:

students at all schools to be equipped with up-to-date and comparable knowledge and competencies
increase employability of our students in a more international working environment
International experience for all students; also for those who cannot go abroad due to personal reasons
to improve our education at level EQF4, to cope with higher demands of the work field
In the project teachers who are originally also veterinarians or veterinary technicians, participated directly.

We have also included 60 students directly in the project; they participated in mobility. Next to this student mobility, no less than a 150 students joined in an experiment with online teaching and training with their peers.

During the project we developed four products:

A set of learning outcomes based on radiology
A manual as a guidance to develop a set of learning outcomes
A manual for work-based learning
A manual for distance learning and coaching across borders.
Although the documents do not intend to be a scientific research, they are based on practical, usable literature. Also the experiences of the two pilot are described. And also student and participant experiences are described, which makes the information in the documents transferable to your own Vocational Education and Training.

We hope you will enjoy reading the documents as much as we liked working on them.

The four learning outcomes are freely accessible to everyone who is interested. (The set of learning outcomes and the manual for development of learning outcomes are combined in one document.)