Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) is in the process of introducing 'train the teachers programme' for upgrading continuing education programme (CEP) for pharmacists across the country in accordance with pharma industry needs. This is part of PCI's plan to upgrade the CEP curriculum towards upgrading the skills of pharmacists.

Says Dr B Suresh, president, PCI, "It is a step forward in the direction of value enhancement of the knowledge of pharmacists in context of the global regulatory environment. PCI's quality assurance programme envisages to devise new industry based curriculum and modules oriented towards pharmacists to help them in enhancing their competencies in the current regulatory framework."

"People from the industry and regulatory bodies need to be made part of the CEP programme. This would bring about uniformity in CEPs and offer a level playing field for all the pharmacists across the country," he adds.

PCI is looking into the quality assurance aspect in pharmacy education taking into consideration the pharmacist's role in serving the industry and trade in a professional and ethical manner. "We are working on models to strengthen the educational programme for which we are planning to make certain variations in the CEP. As a part of the Quality Assurance programme, there is a need to strengthen CEP by customising it according to the needs of pharmacists in various parts of the country based on the regions and their requirements. These programmes will also involve industry people and other stakeholders in the process of framing the curriculum to give the much required exposure to the pharmacists," explains Dr Suresh.

Clinical services provided by pharmacists are fairly new to India and there is also a shortage of clinical pharmacy trainers. Besides this, expansion of pharmacy education in India marks an uneven distribution of colleges across states with quality of education being variable.

Around 60,000 students pass out every year from pharmacy colleges in India. There are one million pharmacists and around seven lakh chemists across the country. Therefore, there is a need to empower pharmacists across the country as facilitators in the process of pharmacy practice considering the huge requirement.