The WOAH Curricula Guidelines for Veterinary Paraprofessionals (VPPs) is a companion document to the WOAH Competency Guidelines for Veterinary Paraprofessionals. Together, the documents offer standardized global guidelines for WOAH member countries to better define the roles of VPPs, the skills that they require, and the training they need to obtain and apply those skills. While the Competency Guidelines outline the skills required for three Tracks of VPPs – animal health, veterinary public health, and laboratory diagnosis – the Curricula Guidelines offer guidance on how to develop programs for training VPPs in those skills. Taken together, the guidelines may be used by regulators to improve definitions of qualified VPPs; by training institutions to develop curricula; or by employers to determine job readiness and job requirements, among other uses.

This resource is published by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), a leading global authority for safeguarding and improving animal health with 182 member countries. WOAH, founded as OIE, was established in 1924 and continues to develop, renew and revise its standards and guidelines on the quality of Veterinary Services. To develop these two Guidelines for VPPs, WOAH convened an ad hoc Group on Veterinary Paraprofessionals including 16 educators, regulators, experts, and representatives of veterinary paraprofessional associations from 10 countries. The guidelines were released in 2019, one year after the release of the Competency Guidelines, and are publicly available in English, Spanish, and French.