'A Contemporary And Relevant Pharmacy Curriculum Is The Need'

Dr B Suresh, President, Pharmacy Council of India, speaks on various issues related to pharma education in India and elaborates on the initiative taken by Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) to bridge the gap between industry and academia, in an interview with Swati Rana.

- Swati Rana

Brief us on the current scenario of pharma education in India.

The pharmacy education in India is presently in a very challenging phase. Due to an increase in the growth of the pharma industry, there is a growing need for qualified and highly knowledgeable human resource. As a result, there is now a sudden spurt of interest from the students to pursue pharmacy programme in India. Further, job opportunities for engineering based programmes are on the downslide, making it less attractive for students to pursue engineering as a first choice of career option. The sudden influx of interest and consequent increase of demand has resulted in the rush to start new pharmacy colleges in India in an already overcrowded space. This sudden growth has precipitated issues relating to the quality of education being delivered at these institutions. The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has addressed this challenge of quality in pharmacy education through a strategy involving three domains of action: quality assurance, academic and institutional capacity building and more emphasis on experiential education and competency building.

What are the issues faced by PCI?

PCI faces a major challenge with regards to dual regulation of pharmacy education, i.e. by the PCI and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This dual regulation has led to institutions exploiting structural and procedural mechanisms of regulation to their advantage, resulting in a number of litigations. Though the PCI and AICTE have worked out strategies to harmonise their regulations it still does precipitate regulatory challenges that result in not being able to bring about quality advancement. Besides this, the major challenge for pharmacy education in the country relates to the availability of qualified and competent pharmacy teachers that can carry forward the vision of PCI in preparing a pharmacist workforce that is competent, current and relevant.