Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of pharmacy colleges in India. Every year more than 17,000 pharma graduates come out of these colleges. With a huge resource potential, Andhra has become the number one contributor of human resource personnel to the pharma industry and CROs in the country.
But these colleges in Andhra now face a variety of problems. The need of the hour is to establish a separate university for pharmaceutical sciences in Andhra Pradesh, aver pharmacy teachers, students, college managements and industry experts.
The 15th Annual National Convention of the Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India (APTICON- 2010), planned to be held in Hyderabad in October, will be passing a resolution in this regard and submit it to the state as well as the Union Governments, it is learnt. The meeting will also discuss another burning issue i.e. creation of uniformity in syllabus.
The pharmaceutical teachers in Andhra Pradesh had earlier put forward the demand for a university before the late Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and he had promised to look into the case. In 2005, when the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress was held in Hyderabad, where Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief guest, he had promised that he would take action to fulfil the long cherished dream of a separate university, said an office-bearer of APTI.
Though Andhra, hub of pharmaceutical industry, is also the hub of pharmacy colleges, the state government has only three colleges under its control. They are the Andhra University College of Pharmaceuticals at Vishakhapatanam, Kakatiya University College of Pharmacy at Warangal and Padmavathy Mahila University College of Pharmacy at Thirupathy. These three institutions are getting UGC grants, but no financial aid from government for private run colleges.
Most of the private pharmacy colleges in Andhra are managed by educational trusts or community associations or hospital managements. Many of the demands by the pharmacy colleges to the AICTE and to the government stand unsolved even today, bemoans the teachers. The Private Pharmacy College Management Association has many a time approached the AICTE for relaxations with respect to amenities in colleges, staff qualification and other things. But they gave relaxation only in one thing, which was to reduce the area of land from five acres to 2.5 acres, a college principal told Pharmabiz. Though both management associations and teachers associations had appealed for a fee hike, the state government has not heeded to the demand upto this time, he added.
According to sources from the teaching sector, 280 pharmacy colleges are working in Andhra, out of which 65 colleges are conducting both B Pharm and M Pharm courses and 18 colleges have the latest Pharm D course. All these colleges are affiliated to different universities and following different syllabi. Five years back , there were hardly 40 pharmacy colleges in the state. Later, because of Pharmacy Council of India’s initiative, more colleges started to come up in various parts of Andhra. Even then, as on today, there are only 80 colleges approved by PCI. They will normally approve the colleges after the completion of the first batch of degree course. About 200 colleges have come in the last four years time. At the same time the number of colleges conducting diploma courses have come down to 15 during the last five years and keeps decreasing.
The colleges which are approved by the Pharmacy Council of India to conduct Pharm D course are-- AU College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vishakhapatnam, A M Reddy Memorial College of Pharmacy, Guntur, Malla Reddy Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Secunderabad, MESCO College of Pharmacy, Hyderabad, KVSR Siddhartha College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vijaywada, Annamacharya College of Pharmacy, Kadapa, Chalapathi Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, Guntur, P. Rami Reddy Memorial College of Pharmacy, Kadapa, Vaagdevi College of Pharmacy, Warangal, Shri Vishnu College of Pharmacy, West Godavari, GIET School of Pharmacy, Rajahmundry , Sri Venkateshwara College of Pharmacy, Hyderabad, St. Peter’s Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hanamkonda, Bharat Institute of Technology, Rengareddy, Talla Padmavathi College of Pharmacy, Warangal, Deccan School of Pharmacy, Hyderabad, Raghavendra Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research (RIPER), Anantapur and Sarojini Ramulamma College of Pharmacy, Mahabubnagar.
All the pharmacy colleges, including the government run colleges, are affiliated to seven universities in the state, which are Osmania University, Andhra University, Kakatiya University, Padmavathy University, JNTU-Hyderabad, JNTU-Kakinada and JNTU-Anantapur.
The pharmacy colleges in AP can be categorized into two. One category of colleges is those belonging to rural areas, which accounts for 50 per cent of the total colleges, and another category belonging to urban areas. Majority of the colleges of the urban areas or cities are supported by hospitals and medical educational institutions. The infrastructure facilities, teaching faculties and institutional facilities of the urban colleges are better than those in the rural areas, where the colleges are unable to get their maximum capacity. Here the managements often find it difficult to attain the full quorum of students and teaching faculty. However they are getting a huge amount every year thanks to the government policy of fee reimbursement for students of SC-ST, minorities, backward communities and economically backward communities.
In cities like Hyderabad, Warangal, Vishakhapatanam, Vijaywada and Tirupathy, the colleges have no problem in filling the seats of degree and PG classes. In Hyderabad and its vicinity alone, there are 50 to 60 colleges.
In the colleges in Andhra, for the 70 per cent of the total student intake, the fee is given by the government. The remaining 30 per cent , admissions can be done through management quota for which the management gets the capitation fee. So, the college managements do not lose any amount from the students’ fees though some delays may occur in disbursing the amount by the government. Recently the state chief minister, K Rosaiah has reiterated that free education would continue and the amount for fee and scholarships would be released in a phased manner without putting pressure on the colleges or students.
However, the last academic year did not bode well for the managements, for, in many of the cases, the demand for the management seats came down badly. Many colleges could not fill up the sanctioned intake. This phenomenon was mostly found in the cases of rural colleges. They struggled hard to run the course with limited number of students and that too without direct payment of fee.
Dr J N Suresh Kumar, principal of Deccan College of Pharmacy, Hyderabad who is also the vice-president of the State Pharmacy College Teachers Association said most of the pharmacy colleges in the rural areas in AP are on the verge of closure due to financial crisis, shortage of students and lack of qualified faculty. The qualified teachers are not willing to work in rural areas because of poor salary and benefits. The management cannot pay them salaries as dictated by AICTE. So, several colleges are engaging even graduates to work as lecturers for the graduate courses. That is a pathetic situation, he said. The decision of the AICTE to hike the student intake will not however benefit them much. Even if they get some additional students, they need to have the required infrastructure facilities and faculty to run the classes. The managements can do nothing for this immediately.
As far as the aspirants of PG Course is concerned, the increase in the number of students for M Pharmacy is a good sign. A total of 65 colleges in the state can admit 18 students each for their PG courses in different branches from this year onwards. But Dr Suresh Kumar says that the chances of students opting for rural colleges for PG Courses are less as the rural colleges have very poor facilities. Further, this enhancement will seek the necessity of qualified teachers for which the colleges have to face challenges. So the academic year 2010-11 may have many unfilled seats in several colleges especially in rural areas
However, he said increasing of PG seats may gradually solve the problem of scarcity of qualified teachers in rural colleges, in future. Provided the fee reimbursement scheme of the government works properly, there may not be any problem to the managements. But how far the government can provide the amount on time is a thousand dollar question now.