Showing a sign of governmental intervention in the conduct of Pharm D programme by self-financing pharmacy institutions in Kerala, the state government has decided to regulate the admission process of the programme from this academic year.

As per the government decision, the Commissionerate of Entrance Examinations (CEE) will hold entrance test for Pharm D and B Pharm courses, and students seeking admissions to these courses must qualify the competitive examination conducted by the CEE. Colleges should fill up the total intake from the list prepared by the office of the CEE.

Until last year, the private college managements were admitting the students to the Pharm D programme by collecting huge amount of capitation fees despite there was an agreement with the government that fifty percent of the total intake of students would be given admission on merit. But the colleges were acting against this agreement, hence there were complaints from all students and parents that huge amount of capitation fees were being collected for admission to the Pharm D programme. In addition to this, the managements were charging huge amount towards course fee.

With the decision of the state government to regulate the admission process, the control of admission for the internationally accredited pharmacy programme, Pharm D, has also come under the ambit of the government. In South India, Kerala is the only state where a government has taken the initiative for regulating the Pharm D programme, though the government institutions are yet to start the programme.

In the case of the graduate course, B Pharm, till last year, on behalf of the government,  the admission process was conducted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Centre for Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram. From the merit list published by it each self-financing college had to fill up fifty percent of their intake. Remaining fifty percent was filled up by collecting capitation fees.

In Kerala, 44 institutions under the Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS) conduct various pharmacy courses. Besides, one institution under Amrita University is conducting all the courses of pharmacy, and two centres under the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, are also conducting  the same courses. But KUHS has not recognized the pharmacy courses of MG University and it does not issue equivalency certificates to the passed out students of the MG University, sources informed.

The order of the government in this regard says that the Kerala Government Pharmacy College Teachers Association (KGPCTA) had requested the government to initiate steps to introduce Competitive Entrance Examination for Pharm D and B Pharm courses conducted in all the colleges from the academic year, 2017-18, and entrust the process of conducting examination and admission to the Commissioner of Entrance Examination, Kerala.

The entrance test will be held on 24th and 25th of April 2017. Last date for submitting application online for the entrance test is March 9. The entrance test for B. Pharm and Pharm. D courses is conducted along with the entrance exam for engineering and the rank list for these courses will be based on paper-1 (Physics & Chemistry) of the engineering entrance examination, the order says.