There will be many arguments from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), if we question its permission to increase M. Pharm seats in Indian pharmacy colleges by nearly 3 folds within a short period of 2 years.

Two problems
Don’t ask the moral question. 'Is professional education a brinjal or banana to leave to the economic theory of price, demand and supply act over it?’ You must realize, when education is left to the private people and fully commercialized, theory of economics applies to it, no wonder!
But what is intriguing AICTE, which is constituted to control and regulate this education ‘market’, has conveniently forgotten two important facts. One is it has not estimated or even tried to estimate the demand for M. Pharm seats in the country. Another one is it has not bothered about consequent fall in standard and quality of higher education.

An estimation of demand
If the AICTE is serious about the quality of higher education it should have undertaken an estimation of demand for M. Pharm seats before increasing it to18 seats per branch in all the old and new PG institutions. It may not be difficult to do that. If there is a real demand there will not be any vacant or unfilled seat with existing PG institutions and there should be huge rush for government seats and so on. Statistics, if published, will reveal the true picture.

Probably AICTE and some greedy college managements might have been misled by the magic of M. Pharm admissions in deemed universities which have admitted more than 120 students per branch, 3 years back. Those huge admissions were for different reasons. You need not study, work on the research project, or even attend classes to get that “prestigious M. Pharm” from these universities because they themselves are the exam conducting, evaluating and degree awarding authorities.

That is the big difference between getting admissions in affiliated colleges and deemed universities, students know it well, not you the AICTE?. This is proved by the fact these students never came out even once to protest against poor quality of education they were getting in those universities. Hence, this author’s article on this subject, published in ‘Pharmabiz’ dated 27th May 2009 (Deemed universities, pulling down education standards?) concluded like this: “What about the students who have joined PG courses of these deemed universities? They are not adolescents just out from school. They are all professional graduates, matured enough to understand the state of affairs in their universities. Why they are not raising their voice against this?  Well, that is again a million dollar question!”

Whatever may be the reason, AICTE has increased the M. Pharm seats not because of the demand from the students but from the greedy private college managements. That is not a wise decision and proved by the reality that more than 75% of M. Pharm seats are vacant even in established old colleges in this academic year 2011-12 [as on 15th June when admissions are closed in Tamil Nadu]. There are some colleges where not even single student is admitted in some branches! In our quest for more quick gold, we have killed the goose that lays golden eggs!

Few weeks back we saw the news, many private pharmacy colleges in Kerala have surrendered more than 50% of their M. Pharm seats to government quota because of poor demand. [Pharmabiz 5th May 2011]. It is the same state of affairs in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and may be in some north Indian states. Thus the fears of well meaning people last year, when seats were increased mindlessly, have come true.

If the price of M. Pharm seat [capitation fee] falls there is no complaint. Parents and students must be happy and consequently there should be rush for M. Pharm seats. More and more B. Pharm graduates should have come forward to do the PG course because of affordability. But to everybody’s dismay it has not happened. That vindicate the view that the supply is disproportionate to demand at the cost of quality.

Everybody knows there is shortage of experienced pharmacy teachers to teach PG classes. [Minimum of 3 Ph. D holders per branch of 18 students]. So what is offered as PG course is not worth to pay and pursue, feel intelligent students. Only the poor, not so intelligent and innocent get into the trap, and regret thereafter forever. That is like offering something inferior and duplicate at discounted price to the customer.

Other side of the problem
Problem of plenty not only affects the new PG institutions, who have invested lakhs of rupees with the hope of getting it back in reasonable time, but also affects the faculty and employees of the existing colleges where too the admissions are less due to cut throat competition. Increase in M. Pharm seats has not automatically lead to increase in income to these colleges, but a cut in income!

It is common sense that whenever income is less, people tend to spend less. So the college managements will try to reduce the expenses on equipment, chemicals and more importantly on salary and increments. Can AICTE prevent it? They have no history of protecting the poor teachers. They only go by the records which are often manipulated or circumvented.

Result
Finally as a result of this unwanted supply, everybody is affected starting from the colleges to teachers to students and ultimately the profession. Then who is benefited by this increase in seats? It is not difficult to guess.