India’s technical education regulator, All India Council for Technical Education, is set to prescribe curricula of all courses in pharmacy being offered by various universities across the country.
The exercise is part of the decision taken by the union ministry of human resources development to ensure uniform and updated syllabi for undergraduate, post-graduate and diploma courses in the field.
This comes close in the heels after the AICTE recently came out with standard syllabi for engineering and management courses.
“Our aim is to introduce a uniform syllabus and common examination patter and a standardised assessment process,” AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe told The New Indian Express. “There have been complaints that curricula being taught in institutes is outdated and needs to change with changing dynamics.”
The new syllabi, being formulated by a committee whose members include academicians as well as representatives from pharmaceutical sector, are likely to come in force from next academic session.
“The universities can also contribute their own part in the curriculum for each course as AICTE will give freedom to the universities to introduce some element on their own,” said a source in AICTE.
He added that the aim was to bring in an international pattern of syllabus for all pharmacy programs updated with new all developments and researches.
According to officials in the technical education department of the HRD ministry, the major advantage of AICTE’s control over pharmacy education and curriculum is that each university can specialize in each area under a common syllabus.
“With numbers and admissions in engineering colleges going down in last several years there have been concerns that pharmacy colleges might end up the same way if quality of education is not ensured,” an official said.
