The multilateral treaty on General Agreement for Trade and Services (GATS), an offshoot of World Trade Organisation (WTO) deliberations, would soon compel Indian pharmacists to upgrade themselves to meet the international requirements as it is proposing to enforce an international accreditation system.
The GATS calls for internationally recognized accreditation systems for all professions, including the pharmacy profession. Being a signatory country, India also needs to bring in standards for pharmacy profession for ensuring the future of Indian pharmacists in a globalized world, says Prof CK Kokate, vice-chancellor, Kakatiya University, Warangal.
Prof Kokate, immediate past president of Indian Pharmaceutical Association and Indian Pharmacy Council called upon the policy makers to come together to introduce such an internationally accepted accreditation system for pharmacy educational institutions in the country.
Delivering the Prof ML Khorana Memorial Lecture on "Value crisis in higher education - causes and remedies" on the second day of 55th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress at Chennai, Prof Kokate observed that the statutory bodies in the country have failed to ensure adequate quality in higher education in pharmacy.
"Despite the presence of University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) much progress has not been made in this direction", he said. Prof Kokate wanted Indian authorities to stop sanctioning more pharmacy colleges in the country. "Pharmacy colleges have reached a saturation point. There is no scope for further expansion of this spectrum of education without enhancing its quality. We have 280 colleges offering degree in pharmacy. There are about 75 Indian Universities offering pharmacy degree programme. What we need now is not more colleges, but a reorientation of our approach towards higher education", he opined.
The last two decades have seen tremendous expansion in pharmacy education sector. However the quantitative expansions took place at the cost of quality. We are yet to establish a benchmark for pharmacy education in the country.
Highlighting the pit falls in the existing system, Prof Kokate pointed out that the industry-institution collaboration have not picked up the way it should. "We need to de-bureaucratise the higher education and research. Our students need to be introduced to different modes and models of university-industry-government-R&D lab collaborations," he said.
He called for the establishment of special coordination bureau to sensitize the society, government and international agencies on vital issues. Global benchmarking of standards in universities and maintenance of up-to-date database of academic experts were also suggested.
Prof Kokate said that the Association of Commonwealth Universities, of which he is a member, has already started preparing a database of academic experts, including those in pharmacy education. Development of mechanism to utilize higher education as an integral component for building up of capabilities in innovations, skillful operations and problems solving, identification of incubation centres of international standard in universities, establishment of zonal centres for planning and implementing long term strategy for continuing education programmes were also proposed by him.