At a seminar organized by the Indian Pharmaceutical Association of Madhya Pradesh in Indore last week Dr. K.P.R. Chowdhari, Research Director of Vikas Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh made a few stunning comments about the status of pharmacy profession in India. He said that only 15 to 20 per cent of the pharmacy graduates and post graduates coming out of the pharmacy colleges in India are capable of taking up a career in the pharmaceutical industry and more than 80 per cent of the qualified pharmacists are unfit for jobs in various segments of the drug manufacturing sector. They need years of training to reach a level as most of them lack skills needed for the industry. His comments were based on a recent study conducted by his research institute. The two main reasons he pointed out for this state of affairs are noteworthy. One is the poor quality of the pharmacy teachers. He is right in saying that unless teachers are well trained, it is difficult to improve the quality of pharmacy education. The pharmacy teachers of today are not reading books and not motivating the students to read standard books on pharmacy. The second issue he raised is the lack of industry academia interaction in most of the pharmacy colleges. He suggested that each college should have association with a pharma unit to interact with so that the students can get industrial training easily. Skilled professionals from the industry should visit the colleges on a regular basis and interact with the students. With such interactions, the students should be able to create new knowledge in pharmacy and make them capable to put such knowledge into practice. He pointed that only two per cent of the 1200 pharmacy colleges in India have such an association with industry.
His comments are indeed eye opening. How is that these issues are not seriously debated and addressed all these years despite India made significant progress in drug manufacturing and export during the last 20 years. It is known to the Indian Pharmacy Council and AICTE that several pharmacy colleges in the country do not have the required number of faculty members and laboratory facilities. Even in colleges where adequate number of faculty is available the quality of such teachers is not up to the mark as pointed out by Dr Chowdhary. Without qualified and competent teachers and lab facilities how a country can produce qualified pharmacists. Regular interaction by pharmacy students with a drug manufacturing facility should be integral part of their education to make them familiarize with the whole process of drug manufacturing. Lab facilities in a pharmacy college alone cannot make the pharmacy students gain knowledge and confidence in drug production. There has been also no serious attempt to harmonize pharmacy education in India with global standards so as to transform Indian pharmacist a well recognized and clinical professional. For this, the current curricula for the pharmacy courses including the one for diploma course needs to be drastically changed. A key reason for this state of affairs is the existence of dual authority for regulating the pharmacy education in India. Pharmacy Council of India is considered to be the sole regulatory body to lay down the curricula and other educational norms for various pharmacy courses in the country. At the same time All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has also been given the authority to sanction new pharmacy colleges as pharmacy education is considered to be a technical education. The government has to set this right at the earliest and entrust PCI as the single authority for the pharmacy education in the country.