The Pharmacy colleges in the country are providers of knowledge and training in pharmaceutical operations to the students but the colleges should create a mechanism by which the fullest potential and zeal of the students is exploited. Entrepreneurship promotes to do something new, develops the ability to take risks and helps in creating a new system of things. There is tremendous change in the economic scenario of the country. Students should look forward towards creating their own enterprise. Hence entrepreneurship promotes a vision for the future and it is the need of the hour. This article deals with the scope and developmental avenues of entrepreneurship in pharmacy academics in the country.
Pharmacy education in India has shown phenomenal growth after independence. There has been 200 fold increase in the pharmacy colleges offering Diploma and Degree Programmes since 1947. The progress was possible due to private colleges initiative. A large number of pharmacy colleges have come up across the country offering sufficient number of seats in D. Pharm and B. Pharm. for increasing aspirations of the students and parents. This success in growth was due to the combined and collective efforts of AICTE, state governments, private entrepreneurs and many others.
Due to surplus availability of pharma manpower, it will be beneficial and appropriate if young pharmacy graduates seek out to exploit their full potential by starting their own ventures and thus becoming job generators rather than job seekers. Moreover the salaries being paid to pharmacy graduates is also not attractive and are not on par with other vocations. Hence this necessitates the pharmacy colleges in the country to take necessary steps to promote entrepreneurial learning programmes in the pharmacy curriculum so that the pharmacy graduate coming out from the colleges can become self reliant and inspire students towards self employment in their early career. Hence the pharmacy colleges should keep their attention on developing a syllabi which not only produces trained manpower for pharmaceutical industry but also produces self reliant entrepreneurial pharmacy graduates which accelerates the process of economic development and growth of the country.
Pharmacy entrepreneurship – immediate need
A pharma technocrat through pharma entrepreneurship can bring a radical change that can meet the challenges of emerging changes due to liberalization and globalization. Fast changing pharma industrial scenario, growing obsolescence in pharmacy curriculum stresses the need for pharma entrepreneurship among the graduates. Pharmacy graduates have a strong bent of mind in science and are capable of maximizing their skills if given the right training. Entrepreneurship development among the pharmacy graduates will be an effective mechanism of renaissance in technology innovations and industrial development of a nation.
Entrepreneurship development
The process of entrepreneurial development involves providing all the inputs and information to a person for enterprise building and sharpening his entrepreneurial skills. The necessary things to be taught are technical, financial, marketing and managerial skills, Entrepreneurial attitude and ability. The entrepreneurship development (ED) is an organized tool for industrial development and a panacea for unemployment. The objective of ED is to motivate a person for entrepreneurial career and to make him capable of perceiving and exploiting successfully the opportunities for enterprise.
The small scale industry development organization established in India in 1964 looks and aims at entrepreneurship skill development, technology upgradation and other issues related to small industries through a chain of small industries service institutes located at different places of the country. The institutes which are involved in entrepreneurship development, research and training are:
1. National Institutes
. National Institute of Small Industry Extension Training (NISIET)
. Entrepreneur Development Institute (EDI)
. National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD)
. Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE)
2. Supporting Institutions
. Nationalized Banks
. Co-operative Banks
. Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)
. Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI)
. Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI)
. State Financial Corporation (SFC)
. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)
. Khadi and Village Industries Commission.
3. The State (Regional Institutes)
. Technical Consultancy Organizations (TCOs)
. Commissioner of Industries
. District Industries Centres
. Industries Corporations
. National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC)
. Non Governmental Organizations
Entrepreneurship development cell
Every pharmacy college should launch an entrepreneurship development cell with a view to encourage students to consider self employment as a career option, provide training in entrepreneurship through modular courses and to teach the relevance of management. This cell will introduce the concept of entrepreneurship in curricula of pharmacy. It also facilitates self employment and entrepreneurship development through formal and non-formal programmes.
A faculty development programme can be conducted by the cell to develop professionals in entrepreneurship development so that they can act as resource persons in guiding and motivating the students to take up entrepreneurship as their career. This faculty development programme will provide a platform from which programmes, formal and informal can be conducted to support skill development activities particularly catering to specific areas of requirement, to identify and provide solutions for the problems of small business management and entrepreneurs, to provide training and retraining of entrepreneurs through variety of programmes and to train trainers, counsellors and motivators involved in the development of pharmaceutical entrepreneurship.
Conclusion
The need of the hour is to encourage more entrepreneurship in pharmaceutical sector so that the drugs and pharmaceuticals can be produced at affordable prices. Entrepreneurship has more scope for innovative ideas, problem solving attitude and creativity.
The author is
Principal
Veerayatan Institute of Pharmacy and Dean
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
K. S. K. V. Kachchh University, Kutch.
E-mail: vidyasagar_gali@yahoo.com