Recently there was an announcement by National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) that they are going to conduct an online course on Pharmaceutical dosage forms. It is under the Swayam project to be conducted jointly by IIT (BHU) and IIT Madras and the notice inviting applications declared that it is an “AICTE approved FDP course” and falls under the category chemical engineering! The intended audience according to the notification are “pharmacy and allied fields”. Readers can have further details from NPTEL website.
Good intention & bad implementation
NPTEL under Swayam project has been conducting such courses for the last few years with the laudable objective of educating the public and this author himself studied a course under its program. But the problem now is the purpose of the above course and the intended audience. As long as the course is to enhance knowledge of people we have no objection, but the present course is so long and seems to be not for mere knowledge enhancement. General purpose may be educating the people in scientific and other topics of interest. But whom they are teaching and how the persons finishing the course going to benefit or use it are the important questions. This arises because there are quite a few attempts by non pharmacy people to catch positions in pharmacy field in the recent past. Hence our apprehension increases. Also there are graduates specially created by teaching the same subject for 4 years along with the other allied subjects in a degree course ( B Pharm). Are the people completing such a short time online course going to use it for manufacture or research or dispensing those Pharmaceutical dosage forms? What is its purpose? Can a 12 weeks, 50 hours class be sufficient or substitute for a pharmacy graduate who studies it for 4 years along with needed supportive and allied subjects? A dosage form’s manufacture and development cannot be done or achieved without studying the physical, chemical pharmacological and pharmaceutical properties of ingredients used in it. All these properties are taught to pharmacy students by scores of separate papers like physical pharmacy, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology and pharmaceutics, not with a single paper but with at least one paper in each year of study. If it is so, what benefit will the students of this course get? Obviously the course is planned after inadequate application of mind and going to deliver a premature baby. Hence we request authorities to restrict the admission to the course to pharmacy graduates only and offer it as a refresher course, as there might be thousands of them who want to renew or update their knowledge gathered decades back. Teaching people from allied fields may tempt them to interfere in the pharmaceutical field by way of employment or research which may result in disaster because of these half-baked people!
Periodical interference
We know scientific fields overlap but there should be some border or limit so as not to stray into the core area of a particular field. A doctor should not be interfered in his diagnosis by the so-called allied health professionals. Similarly manufacture and development of pharmaceutical dosage forms is the core or heart of the pharmacy field. Already the entire periphery of the pharmacy field like retail, and analysis of drugs are occupied by allied field people, at least, leave the core of it to the person studying or practicing it. We used to wonder and worry why chemical engineering and chemistry people who have scores of fields, like cement, sugar, plastic, petroleum, paint, edible oil, bulk chemicals, etc., to work, specialise and develop are often trespassing into the pharmacy field, especially when there are separate UG, PG and doctoral courses for it and more importantly, they have only that one field to practice. Please leave it alone. Remove the eligibility ‘allied fields’ from the notification.
Attention PCI
When such interferences are there in pharmacy profession, PCI as the custodian, controller and caretaker should protest immediately. Unfortunately it is lacking in that statutory duty. When PCI fought AICTE for full control of the pharmacy field in the Court of law, all the pharmacists were happy. Though the legal battle prolonged, we finally got full control and wrested it from AICTE. Why is similar vigilance and protest not always maintained? Even in the above notification cited, it is mentioned the course is approved by AICTE. How come they start or approve a pharmacy course which was prohibited by the honourable Supreme Court of India on March 5, 2020? Is it not disobedience or contempt of Court? Can't the PCI issue a notice immediately to that effect to AICTE?
Action against NIPER
When NIPER started M Pharm course 10, 12 years back without PCI inspection and approval it was protested by PCI. NIPER said at that time that “we are a statutory body created by an Act of Parliament like the PCI and hence we need not take permission from it” They are still standing on it, I think. PCI should have challenged it in the Court as it did in the case of AICTE which is also a statutory body created by an Act of Parliament. Now PCI has a strong winnable point by way of the favourable judgement we got from the Supreme Court. By quoting that judgement why can't we challenge NIPER in the Court? NIPER is not keeping quiet, it is again and again disturbing the Pharmacy Council of India. Recently they included a clause in the National Pharmacy Commission Bill, that all M Pharm graduates from NIPER are automatically eligible to be registered as pharmacists. That shows their influence with government officers concerned. Only the Court can give a fitting reply to them.
Play by NIPER
In this connection let me quote the following few lines from my earlier article “National Pharmacy Commission - its vision, mission and omission”. “It (draft bill) says, M Pharm graduates from NIPER are automatically eligible for registration as pharmacists. What if non pharmacists are admitted in that M Pharm course? There is no question of registration if pharmacy undergraduates (B Pharm) alone are admitted in NIPER M Pharm, as already they might have registered with their UG qualification. How come a person who has not studied basics of pharmacy education is eligible to register as pharmacist? For example, if a BSc or MSc or BE is admitted in NIPER M Pharm pharmaceutical chemistry course and registered as pharmacist, can he dispense medicine by reading prescriptions, explain pharmacological properties of drugs to patient, council patient or detect adverse drug reaction? These are all million dollar questions authorities should answer. Will the government permit similar admission of non MBBS graduates in MD or MS courses and register them as doctors?”
Thus NIPER is playing with the pharmacy field. They have some ulterior motive against PCI, it seems. Let the honourable Court decide who is right.
(The author is ex-president, Indian pharmacy graduates association, Madurai, Tamil Nadu)
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