News

This week, the rectors of the three Georgian higher education institutions that provide veterinary medicine education visited the Estonian University of Life Sciences to gather knowledge for the development of veterinary faculties in Georgia.

Toomas Tiirats, director of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health of the Estonian University of Life Sciences, said that this visit was part of a larger cooperation project in the veterinary field, which was initiated by the fact that Georgia is harmonizing its legislation with the requirements of the European Union. "The field of veterinary medicine, which is very heavily regulated, must also be brought into line with the legislation of the European Union. Our guests and colleagues from Georgian universities are very interested in how we have organized, for example, clinical medicine studies at the Estonian University of Life Sciences. We also introduce the requirements for veterinary education in the European Union. It only makes us happy that our guests want such cooperation to continue in the future as well," said Toomas Tiirats.

Nino Taliashvili, rector of the European University located in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, said that their aim is to create a new pool of young veterinary professionals in Georgia. "Closer cooperation with the veterinary medicine clinics, laboratories and universities in European Union countries such as Estonia will also help us reach this goal. We were impressed by the technical base and administration of the small animal clinic, productive animal clinic and horse clinic of the Estonian University of Life Sciences. Meetings with lecturers, visits to laboratories, as well as meetings with the heads of education and continuing education, international cooperation and other administrative fields of the university were also very interesting and useful. We will take with us a lot of advice and ideas for the development of veterinary medicine education in our home country," said Nino Taliashvili.

In addition to the European University, the rectors of Samtskhe-Javakhet State University and Zugdid State Teaching University are also visiting Tartu. Cooperation between the Estonian University of Life Sciences and Georgian higher education institutions in veterinary field takes place in 2023 and 2024 within the framework of the VETPRO project, funded by the Erasmus program of the European Union.

The project aims at developing the field of veterinary medicine in Georgia and its main objectives are as follows: development of veterinary faculties and improvement of teaching quality in accordance with EU standards; supporting veterinary continuing education by means of online open access courses; supporting socio-economic sector by establishing connections between higher educational institutions and wider community.