Working Groups

At the SAALAS special conference Education and Training in Laboratory Animal Science held in Pretoria, South Africa from 25-27 November 2015, five Working Groups were convened to champion education & training for subsets of disciplines namely:

Laboratory animal technology

Animal ethics committees

Animal welfare & 3Rs

Veterinarians

Scientists

The SAALAS Working Groups were constituted to drive the development of Education & Training programmes

in Laboratory Animal Science in Southern Africa. Each working group has a SAALAS Executive liaison through which they liaise with the executive.

The Working Groups identified objectives, priorities and timelines initially in November 2015, common themes include establishing online resources, discussion forums, stakeholder surveys, accredited programmes, short courses, workshops and continued professional development (CPD).

Progress to date (Jan 2018) includes: two surveys being completed by the animal ethics committee working group and the veterinarian working group. The first education and training interventions, as identified by these surveys, are being planned for 2018 (please see the meetings>save the date tab). The scientists group is in process of developing a survey to identify their needs. The LAT working group has been hard at work initiating the return to SA of a formal LAT training program while the animal welfare & 3Rs working group is tackling the concern of barbering in rodents.

Colleagues who wish to join Working Groups should email the secretary: secretary@saalas.org or janet.mccallum@uct.ac.za