The Education Division of the Tamil Nadu branch of Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) is evolving new strategies designed to extend support to the private pharmacy education sector of the state, which is in deep crisis for the last several years due to shortage of students in B Pharm and D Pharm courses.

The division will hold awareness meetings and discussions in Chennai and elsewhere with the help of media and pharmacy colleges to make aware the students, who have passed their Plus 2 courses, about the career scope of Pharmacy courses. The Association feels that the downfall in the field of pharmacy education will adversely affect the manpower requirement of the industry and later on it may act on the quality aspects of the products, said J Jayaseelan, national secretary of the industrial division of IPA.

“The awareness programs are meant not only for the students, but their parents as well. This is the time the industry can do something to save the education sector. It would be a joint program. We will seek the help of the upcoming clinical trial organizations and also of the ISM sector which also requires pharmacists”, he said.

Jayaseelan, who is also the secretary of Tamil Nadu IPA, further added that he will ask his counterparts in other states to conduct supportive programs to elevate the education sector from its present predicament in national level. According to him the scheme by IPA to sensitize the student community in Tamil Nadu will take place from next week, and the modalities for holding the program are being chalked out.

“This is an area of opportunities, no unemployment is for pharmacists, and there won’t be any for another ten years. Even the Diploma holders can get jobs without spending too many years for study. Chances of graduates are immense. Even for my company, I am recruiting qualified pharmacists from outside. The availability of pharmacy graduates are less in Tamil Nadu, ” he averred.

The programmes are basically intended to attract students who aspire to pursue a degree in some professional courses. The people in industry presume that the class rooms of the pharmacy colleges in the state can be easily filled up with their maximum capacity of students provided they be educated about the prospects of the course. On the basis of this assumption, they are now engaged in structured dialogue with academicians, school managements and pharmacy council of India. The association feels that their deliberation for new initiatives to boost the educational sector will help the educational institutions to woo the younger generation to fill up the class rooms of all the pharmacy colleges in Tamil Nadu.

According to sources, certain colleges hitherto conducting Diploma courses have closed down and some others are on the verge of closure. The status of Degree Colleges are poor, some of them are getting students below 10 and some others below 15. So, concrete measures are required to save these institutions when there are plenty of prospects for the courses.

Principals of some colleges have responded that IPA’s support will help a lot to sustain the educational sector, or else there will be drastic effects on the pharma industry in future. So, pharma industry’s potential will be advantageous to the educational sector.

According to Tamil Nadu Pharmacy council sources, more than 60 registered colleges conducting D Pharm and B Pharma are in crisis due to lack of sufficient number of students.