Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has started efforts to come out of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) ambit. It is now working to discuss with the government to have a single regulatory agency in place for pharmacy education.

“We had a successful dialogue with AICTE for a de-merger which they have agreed. Once this is through, the government will take a call on whether one regulatory agency namely PCI would be suffice for the profession. If PCI-AICTE supports this view, then the government will also realise that there is no need to duplicate the control of pharmacy education. However this is difficult to happen overnight and may take a couple of years,” said Dr B Suresh, president of PCI.

Now PCI-AICTE needs to tell the government that there is an efficient mechanism to regulate pharmacy profession under a single authority. The whole system is expected to function in a transparent and achievable manner. “We are striving towards it and the government will not hesitate to take a positive a decision on this,” he added.

“This will give us the total autonomy and we will function on similar lines that of the Medical Council of India and the Dental Council of India,” said Dr. Suresh.

Comparing Indian pharmacy education on a global platform, Dr. Suresh said the country was generating a large number of pharmacy graduates and even the course content wise with continuing education programme (CEP) India is on par with the western world in terms of syllabus.

However, there was a serious need for enhancement of quality education. Therefore it is important for us to come out the AICTE umbrella.

There is a need to ensure that quality standards of education and teaching is uniform across India. Currently, this standardization of education practices is only in some pockets. The Council aspires to see a student in the metro and rural area receive the same educational exposure and training.

“We need to move from quality control to quality assurance and then to quality advancement. So it is a three-phase approach. Pharmacy Colleges in the country which are at a quality control stage and are already talking about quality assurance. If there are institutions which are already having the quality assurance, then PCI is looking at these pharmacy colleges to progress to quality advancement stage. Therefore, once we de-link ourselves from AICTE, it would ensure total autonomy in terms of processes and practices,” said Dr. Suresh.