animals Review Veterinary Education during Covid-19 and Beyond—Challenges and Mitigating Approaches Jennifer Routh 1, * , Sharmini Julita Paramasivam 1 , Peter Cockcroft 1 , Vishna Devi Nadarajah 2 and Kamalan Jeevaratnam 1   Citation: Routh, J.; Paramasivam, S.J.; Cockcroft, P.; Nadarajah, V.D.; Jeevaratnam, K. Veterinary Education during Covid-19 and Beyond— Challenges and Mitigating Approaches. Animals 2021, 11, 1818. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061818 Received: 10 May 2021 Accepted: 16 June 2021 Published: 18 June 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey, Vet School Main Building, Daphne Jackson Road, Guildford GU2 7AL, UK; s.paramasivam@surrey.ac.uk (S.J.P.); p.cockcroft@surrey.ac.uk (P.C.); drkamalanjeeva@gmail.com (K.J.) 2 Division of Human Biology, School of Medicine and IMU Centre for Education, International Medical University, No.126, Jalan Jalil Perkasa 19, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia; vishnadevi_nadarajah@imu.edu.my * Correspondence: j.routh@surrey.ac.uk Simple Summary: The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the provision of veterinary education. The principal challenges and mitigating approaches have focussed on the delivery of material online, but given the practical and professional outcomes required of veterinary graduates, innovative ways to provide some in person teaching have been sought also. Abstract: The public health implications of the Covid-19 pandemic have caused unprecedented and unexpected challenges for veterinary schools worldwide. They are grappling with a wide range of issues to ensure that students can be trained and assessed appropriately, despite the international, national, and local restrictions placed on them. Moving the delivery of knowledge content largely online will have had a positive and/or negative impact on veterinary student learning gain which is yet to be clarified. Workplace learning is particularly problematic in the current climate, which is concerning for graduates who need to develop, and then demonstrate, practical core competences. Means to optimise the learning outcomes in a hybrid model of curriculum delivery are suggested. Specific approaches could include the use of video, group discussion, simulation and role play, peer to peer and interprofessional education. Keywords: Covid-19; curriculum; e-learning; educational methods 1. Introduction In the final week of December 2019, the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine hospital in Wuhan reported a clustered point-source outbreak of pneumonia [1], of unknown viral origin. Within 30 days, the rapid geographic spread of the disease, which the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses later coined Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) [2], implied propagation by human-to-human transmission. On March 11th 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated Covid-19 a pandemic [3]. Covid-19 has been confirmed as the cause of over 130,000,000 cases and over two and a half million deaths globally [4]. However, what began as a ‘healthcare crisis’ quickly had serious implications for all public institutions including universities and veterinary schools in the United Kingdom (UK). National regulations required that students were sent home prior to ‘lockdown’ with little or no advanced warning and caused major disruptions to the delivery of veterinary programmes at all levels. Historically, and until very recently, veterinary education in the UK has largely relied on the integration of didactic face-to-face teaching with experiential, hands on workplace learning, both of which had to be transformed rapidly. Immediate innovation was required Animals 2021, 11, 1818. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061818 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals