Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India (APTI) is concerned over  the paucity of professors across the 11,000 pharmacy colleges in the country. Plans are underway to open a dedicated Pharmacy Teachers Institute in Bengaluru for which APTI is scouting for the required infrastructure.

Pharmacy Teachers Institute is on similar lines that of the existing B.Ed and M.Ed teachers training courses. The APTI would also focus on ‘Teachers-Industry’ collaboration in an effort to take the ‘pharmacy education beyond the curriculum’, Dr TV Narayana, general secretary of the local organising committee of the APTICON 2013 to be held at Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh, from October 25-27, 2013.

The shortage of pharmacy teachers is a big issue to tackle and going hand-in-hand is the lack of training of the scores of new teachers who are the fresh post graduates gearing up to take on classrooms immediately after they get their results. This is a worry and we are going all out to sort out this issues, Dr Narayana, also the chairman, education division, Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) & secretary, Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Association (IPCA) told Pharmabiz.

Currently, there are 15,000 pharmacy teachers and there is need to double this number to begin with. Each pharmacy college requires four professors, eight assistant professors and eight lectures. The present representation at the colleges is appalling. The apex bodies of pharmacy education: AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) and the Pharmacy Council of India mandate a teacher-student ratio of 1:15 but the reality is abysmal, he added.

A prime factor for shortfall of faculty is the mushrooming for pharmacy colleges in the country. There are no assessment made on the availability of teachers instead the focus is on attracting students by the college managements.

From the 11,000 pharmacy colleges, there are 60,000 B Pharm candidates passing out and 30,000 post graduates. The post graduates are wooed into taking on teaching posts from the colleges they pass out. It has resulted in the poor faculty quality driven by  inexperienced delivery of content and no exposure to the advances in the industry. Therefore, the APTI’s intent is to set up an exclusive Pharmacy Teachers Institute in Bengaluru to be able to train them on similar lines that of B.Ed and Med. Courses. The need of the hour is to update the pharmacy teachers’ know-how and upgrade the syllabus, pointed out Dr Narayana.

The latest development in the pharma industry is computer aided drug design. But in many of the pharmacy colleges, computer assisted training is itself absent. There is also need to develop leadership amongst the teachers who can inculcate the same in students. Further, going by the fast pace of developments in the pharma industry in the area of research and manufacture, the pharmacy education needs to evolve with the latest trends. From an APTI perspective, the Pharmacy Teachers Institute which requires around Rs.2 crore investment would provide the much needed transformation in teaching methodology, said Dr Narayana.