Management, entrepreneurship and private service orientation : a framework for undergraduate veterinary education

The changing nature of livestock outreach service delivery, manpower requirements and opportunities in the private sector provide both push and pull dynamics for veterinary graduates to engage in managerial, entrepreneurial, public and private service activities. The veterinary schools should support this transition by integrating Managerial, Entrepreneurship and Service (MES) orientation in the curriculum. This transition is a quite challenging task, as the core content of the Veterinary Council of India curriculum consists of basic, productive, para-clinical and clinical subjects with little emphasis on MES aspects. Merely introducing a one-off intervention such as a semester course may not be sufficient. What is proposed with 730 class hours is a two- pronged integrative approach: i) introduce the functional management disciplines into the veterinary undergraduate curriculum; and ii) integrate the entrepreneurial, public and private service philosophy into each of the production, para-clinical and clinical courses with a curriculum for public and private service as electives. This integrative approach is expected to produce graduates as job givers rather than job seekers by mastering both the science of veterinary and animal husbandry and the art of management and entrepreneurship.