The two enclosed papers are:

• The Report of the validation meeting for the proposed BSc/BSc (Honours) Veterinary Nursing Programme at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). The validation event also incorporated Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) accreditation of the programme (General Degree).
• The response of the Programme Team to the conditions set by the validation panel.

1. Academic Standards Committee (ASC) is asked to note that SRUC operates a different procedure regarding programme validation to that of the University’s other validated institutions whereby SRUC expects the relevant Programme Team to address the conditions prior to submission to ASC for approval. The usual procedure is for the Validated Institution to report on progress of the conditions and recommendations after 12 months. Recommendations from SRUC validation events are considered by the programme/development team and their resulting action plan scrutinised through SRUC’s own committee structure and reported to the University as part of annual reporting. This is except for any recommendations that impact on fulfilling conditions.

2. In the case of the proposed BSc/BSc (Honours) Veterinary Nursing programme, the Programme Team has satisfactorily addressed the majority of conditions arising out of the validation event and one recommendation regarding reviewing the proposed content of year 4.

One exception is the condition related to RCVS accreditation (see below and the Validation Report, page 9, section 5.2(a)).

• The requirements for RCVS provisional accreditation of the BSc Veterinary Nursing, as indicated in their report, must be fully satisfied by the end of June - and thus enable the RCVS Veterinary Nursing Education Committee to endorse the accreditation at its July meeting.

3. Following the validation event, the Programme Team received the draft RCVS Accreditation Report for review. The Programme Team had some reservations regarding how the validation relationship had been described in the Accreditation Report and also how actions had been attributed to the University rather than to SRUC. The RCVS’s position in relation to validated provision is that the validating institution is ultimately responsible for the award so the actions should be assigned to the University. In reality, the University delegates these actions to SRUC.

4. To address this, the University has identified that additional monitoring is required with respect to this programme. Therefore, an agreement has been reached with SRUC on the devolvement of these actions and the additional procedures that will be put in place to allow comprehensive University oversight. As part of this, the School of Veterinary Medicine has agreed to:

• Support SRUC with a small number of joint staff visitations to external veterinary practice training providers (TPs);
• Undertake an annual visit to the SRUC Barony Campus to ensure the facilities, staffing and education continue to meet all of the standards required by the RCVS;
• Provide, if required, support and training for SRUC staff for objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs); and
• Participate in a joint annual meeting with SRUC to review the general operation of the programme.

Separately, SRUC will submit an additional annual report to the UoG-SRUC Joint Liaison Committee regarding the programme.

Subject to the Programme Team satisfying the provisional accreditation requirement of the RCVS (as set out in the validation report, page 9, section 5.2(a), Academic Standards Committee is asked to approve the BSc/BSc (Hons) in Veterinary Nursing for a period of six years, commencing in session 2018-19.

SRUC.

No resource implications have been identified for the University beyond the additional support which will be offered by the School of Veterinary Medicine (see above) and the Academic Collaborations Office.

The proposed programme will commence in September 2018.

SRUC has an Equality and Diversity Policy in place. An Equality Impact Assessment is being arranged for the proposed programme.