No new pharmacy colleges till 2022 to avoid fate similar to Engineering

       The blanket ban by AICTE and Pharmacy Council Of India is not applicable to North East and states with less than 50 Pharmacy Institute. The to impose a moratorium was triggered primarily due to the unprecedented applications received by the councils for starting new pharmacy programmes during the academic session 2019-20. Several technical institutes and nursing colleges saw a dip in the admissions. the buildings of these institutes  were used to start pharmacy colleges.

       Presently, more than 3000 Pharmacy colleges have enrolled more than 1 lakh students in undergraduate courses, which is adequate to meet the country's need to cater to the global health workforce, as per Dr.Suresh Bhojraj, President of  PCI..As many as 1400 application were received in 2019-2020 to start new pharmacy colleges of which 842 were granted approvals, with maximum of 541 institutions in Uttar Pradesh. The conditional ban would avoid the lopsided growth of the institutions and the manpower availability vis-a-vis job opportunities, leading to planned growth in the states where such education and opportunities are required.

       In past few years regulators had approved a huge number of engineering colleges, which resulted in surplus seats and eventually, the colleges had to be shut down because there were no takers. The motive behind the decision is to avoid similar stagnation in the field of Pharmacy,added Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of AICTE.

The major challenge will be keeping in pace with advances of Pharmaceutical sciences and change in the industry demands. To be relevant in the dynamic academic and industry scenario, the PCI  will soon Integrate skill development programme into the curriculum to increase the employbility of the graduates. The master's programmes in pharmacy are also being reviewed to facilitate employment embedded education. 

Courtesy:https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/no-new-pharmacy-colleges-till-2022-to-avoid-fate-similar-to-engineering/articleshow/70944450.cms