- PCIThe PCI is a statutory body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. The PCI is responsible for approving B.Pharm courses and ensuring that institutions meet certain requirements, such as having adequate classrooms, laboratories, and staff facilities.
- AICTEThe AICTE is a statutory body that develops technical education in India. The AICTE created a model course curriculum for B.Pharm, which universities can use to frame their own syllabi.
- For existing institutions that offer B.Pharm courses, approval from the PCI is mandatory, but approval from the AICTE is not.
PCI should conduct comprehensive study on performance of pharmacy institutions: Prof GP Mohanta
Peethaambaran Kunnathoor, Chennai
Friday, October 18, 2024, 08:00 Hrs [IST]
Since Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) is now the only regulator for pharmacy education in the country after AICTE’s discontinuation of jurisdiction over pharmacy, the PCI should conduct a comprehensive study about the importance and performances of all pharmacy institutions, and check whether they fulfill all the requirements for providing quality education, opines Prof. Guru Prasad Mohanta, former HoD at the Department of Pharmacy at Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu.
According to him, the majority of the private pharmacy colleges are working with poor-quality faculty members. The PCI is not providing training programmes for the beginner-teachers. When pharmacy education was under the regulation of both the PCI and the AICTE, the technical education council used to conduct orientation programmes and refresher courses for the teachers.
When the AICTE’s role was severed, these two training programmes ceased to exist, and the PCI did not want to take it forward. As a result, the fresh faculty members do not get any training programme. Mohanta said the teachers should be given training on how to teach the subjects and how to handle a classroom. They should also be updated with the latest developments in the subject also.
He said India has the largest number of pharmacists as well as the largest number of pharmacy colleges. At present, the domain of India’s pharmacy education includes 5,855 pharmacy education institutions, 93,336 faculty members and 360,072 students. Out of 5,855, 1,865 colleges are affiliated to various private universities and 1,911 colleges are working under state medical or health universities. Besides, there are four government universities and seven National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPERs) that run exclusive pharmacy courses. The number of pharmacy college-affiliated private universities is 24.
Every year, over three lakh pharmacy graduates and diploma holders are produced by Indian pharmacy institutions. But there is not an all-inclusive report of the importance, necessity and performances of these institutions available either with PCI or with any institution or any agency. Being the pharmacy education regulator, the PCI should come forward to conduct a survey study about the performances and necessity of this many pharmacy colleges functioning across India. Similarly, the study should also focus on the facilities available in each institution, and whether the college managements are complying with the norms of the pharmacy council guidelines with regard to infrastructure facilities, laboratory equipment and qualification of the teachers.
According to him, there are very few institutions functioning with properly qualified faculties. In the case of qualification and standard required for teachers, the PCI should amend the rules and ensure highly qualified people are playing the role of faculty members in institutions. If India has to produce well-qualified pharmacists, quality of education is a factor which can be delivered only by well-qualified teachers.
Going back, Prof Mohanta said, the PCI, considering the availability of sufficient qualified pharmacist workforce, the national education regulator, in 2019, put a moratorium on the opening of new pharmacy colleges for running diploma as well as degree courses in pharmacy for a period of five years from the academic year 2020-2021. However, on the intervention of college managements with high courts, the council had to withdraw the moratorium in the next academic year, and from that year on the number of institutions started to increase alarmingly. At the time of putting the moratorium, the number of pharmacy colleges in India was 3,000.
He pointed out that when the AICTE lost its jurisdiction over pharmacy education, it stopped all grants that were being given to pharmacy students and institutions in the form of scholarships and other benefits. He alleged further that the government assured the students of a GPAT scholarship for pharmacy students, but the PCI is not vigorously initiating steps for expediting it.
In Tamil Nadu, the president of the state branch of the APTI, Dr V Sankar, and in Odisha, the principal of the Dadhichi College of Pharmacy in Cuttack, Dr Rajat Kumar Kar, have started faculty training programmes for pharmacy teachers in the absence of refresher courses by AICTE or PCI.
