Check out the latest Animal Management Jobs here.
Animal care services employ 75,000 in the UK, with a further 16,000 working as veterinary nurses. It is an industry worth more than £1bn to the UK economy, emphasising its importance, encompassing jobs as far-ranging as a zoologist, veterinary nurse, guide dog trainer and marine biologist. Keeping abreast of the latest developments in government policy and its impact on the industry is crucial to further education (FE) animal management lecturers.
The government’s decision to push ahead with the promotion of T Levels while defunding BTECs represents a sea change in the FE sector. Funding for most BTECs will be removed by 2025. The plan is to make T Levels the gold standard technical alternative to A Levels, offering a blend of classroom-based learning and industry-led work experience.
Industry experts were called upon to develop plans for new and wide-ranging animal care and management T Level training programme in 2020. Following a tender process, it was announced in October 2021 that City & Guilds had been awarded contracts to deliver two new T Level qualifications in Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care.
David Phillips, Managing Director of City & Guilds, explained: “These technical qualifications represent an excellent opportunity for young people looking to start their working life in a sector which can offer sustainable, rewarding careers.”
He added: “As the next generation enters the workforce, they will be facing new opportunities and we are honoured to play a very important role in helping to equip these students with the skills they will need to flourish in their future careers.”
The T Levels will be made available from September 2023 and have been developed in collaboration with employers and businesses to be specifically tailored for those seeking careers in the animal management sphere.
Launched in June 2021, the aim of the Animal Welfare Bill is to improve the welfare standards of pets, livestock and wild animals through a wide range of measures. Among the various new measures to be introduced into law are new powers to combat puppy smuggling and livestock worrying; improvements to welfare standards for pets, farmed and kept wild animals, including through a ban on keeping primates as pets; a tightening of laws on zoos to ensure they are doing more to contribute to conservation.
Indeed, the Animal Welfare Bill makes the UK the first country in Europe to completely ban the live export of animals for slaughter and fattening. The Bill enables the UK to go “further than ever on animal welfare” now that the UK is an independent nation outside the EU, environment secretary George Eustice explained.
He added: “This builds on the launch of our Action Plan for Animal Welfare and Animal Sentience Bill last month as part of our work to build on our status as a world leader on animal welfare.”
Fe animal management lecturers should familiarise themselves with the monumental and welcome legislation changes so they can impart this knowledge to their students. The changes outlined in the Bill will undoubtedly improve the lives of animals and animal management lecturers will play a central role in upholding the UK’s proud tradition of having high welfare standards.
Indeed, the T Level outline content published by the Department for Education in October 2020 states: “Awarding organisations will need to ensure that students have an up-to-date knowledge of the legal and regulatory obligations relating to employment in the occupations relevant to the T Level and understand the practical implication of these on their work.”
Considering that the veterinarian industry will require an additional 7,486 positions, expanding by 36% out to 2027, there may well be a chronic shortage of vets in the coming years. This means that the demand for animal management lecturers has never been greater, especially given the fact that 67% of the workforce is set to retire by the end of 2027.
Leaving the EU has not been without its challenges but opportunities do exist for industry leaders to “make practical changes to improve animal health”, according to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra)’s
‘Farming for the Future’ document. It highlights the simplified administration processes that will arise from Brexit, allowing the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to “better able to address the individual barriers people face – regardless of where they live in the UK”.
A new law designed to formally recognise animals as sentient beings were introduced in May 2021 in what has widely been seen as a hard-fought victory for animal welfare campaigners. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill brings into the law the recognition that animals can experience feelings such as pain or joy.
For the first time, animal sentience will be acknowledged when the government develops policy utilising an Animal Sentience Committee made up of animal experts from within the field. The government plans to enhance standards and eradicate cruel practices for animals both domestically and internationally.
RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood said: “This is a really important time for animal welfare and, if we get it right, we can make real and lasting changes to the lives of animals here and abroad.”
MPs have warned that the shift to the post-Brexit payments scheme may result in some farmers being forced out of business, which may affect the relationship between land-based colleges and other FE institutions offering courses in livestock husbandry, for instance.
The subsidies received by the EU have been replaced with a new payment system introduced by the UK government with the aim of helping farmers, as well as boosting biodiversity. However, while the previous EU system paid farmers based on their land area farmed, concerns have been raised over the new system, called the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme.
A spokesperson from Defra stated: “Our future agricultural policy will move away from the arbitrary land subsidies and top-down bureaucracy that epitomised the EU era and incentivise farmers to farm more sustainably, create space for nature and enhance animal welfare outcomes.”
“We are supporting the choices that farmers make for their own holdings”, they added. Meanwhile, Neil Parish, chairman of the Efra select committee, said: “This is the most fundamental change to agricultural funding in a generation, and the impact of this huge change on farmers’ incomes and entire ways of life cannot be underestimated.”
Sources/Further reading
https://banbury.activatelearning.ac.uk/courses/career-pathways/animal-management-and-agriculture/
https://www.ekcgroup.ac.uk/canterbury-college/animal-management
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/farm-subsidies-brexit-elm-defra-b1947046.html
AoCJobs, part of the Association of Colleges, connects teachers and support staff with schools and colleges for online job opportunities.