A biosecurity curriculum for New Zealand?
Participants at the recent QUADS
Biosecurity Curriculum meeting in
Brisbane, 7-8 June 2007
By Phil Hulme, Lincoln University
Building national capacity in biosecurity is a key priority for New Zealand. In response, the university sector has recently launched a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses that address pertinent biosecurity issues (see also Biosecurity 74:15 March 2007).
Auckland, Canterbury, Lincoln and Waikato universities are leading the way, and offer a breadth of subjects that deal with issues ranging from possums to pitch canker. These are all good signs of a thriving learning environment, but could it be better? Quite possibly, because many of these initiatives are occurring simultaneously and independently, overlap in content and build on regional, rather than national, expertise.
One size won't fit all
Biosecurity is a multidisciplinary subject spanning both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, involving policy makers, economists, statisticians, ecologists and taxonomists, to name a few. The subject is also relevant to many stakeholders, each with specific needs and levels of understanding. Designing and implementing training courses in biosecurity thus becomes a challenging task, since it is unlikely that one size will fit all.
Across the Tasman, the first steps have been taken to develop an Australian biosecurity curriculum. This initiative, supported by the Australian Collaboration and Structural Reform Fund (CASR) is led by Queensland University of Technology and involves a consortium of four other universities: Adelaide, Charles Darwin, La Trobe and Murdoch. The Australian Cooperative Research Centre in National Plant Biosecurity is also behind the curriculum and is contributing funds.
The proposed degrees will be at the postgraduate certificate, diploma and masters levels. The collaborative approach will ensure a more complete training experience and establish a national standard that will be recognisable to key stakeholders such as the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
Collaboration planned
If building national consensus about biosecurity training is a challenge, then attempts to coordinate training provision across international borders would appear ambitious indeed. However, this is one of the aims of the quadrilateral scientific collaboration in plant biosecurity (QUADS). The QUADS initiative provides a framework for scientific cooperation in research, training and technologies regarding phytosanitary issues and plant protection across Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
Recently, QUADS hosted a meeting in Brisbane to discuss what a QUADS biosecurity curriculum should include and the topics that could be standardised across all four countries. Topics identified encompassed risk assessment, emergency response strategies, surveillance and diagnostic technologies, policy and legislation, invasion biology and impacts. Not surprisingly, the proposed Australian biosecurity curriculum is being examined as a possible model for an international curriculum.
Where we fit in
So where does New Zealand fit among these training initiatives? As a member of QUADS, we are ensuring that our considerable expertise is reflected in the structure and content of any international curriculum. However, there is potentially much to be gained from considering a New Zealand biosecurity curriculum.
MAFBNZ, in its draft Biosecurity Science, Research and Technology Strategy for New Zealand (MAFBNZ Discussion Paper No. 2006/04), identifies the need for highly trained professionals and scientists to underpin the science capacity required to protect New Zealand from damaging pests and diseases. It is likely that a national biosecurity curriculum would deliver this aim far more successfully than any one of the proposed courses on offer. More importantly, a validated national standard would be a valuable asset both nationally and internationally. Developing the international market is important not only because it is larger, but also because, increasingly, protecting New Zealand requires improved biosecurity management offshore.
Initially, both MAFBNZ and the relevant universities could agree on what a national curriculum might offer, highlight the key gaps in existing provision and identify differing stakeholder needs. Ideally, this first step should be followed by collaborative development of compatible modules across universities (especially if catalysed by government funding) and subsequent marketing of a national biosecurity curriculum.
- Phil Hulme is Professor of Plant Biosecurity, National Centre for Advanced Bio-Protection Technologies, Lincoln University, phone 03 325 3696, hulmep@lincoln.ac.nz
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Page last updated: 30 April 2008