The
head of Department of Pharmacy at the government pharmacy college attached to
the Madras Medical College in Chennai has written to the All India Council for
Technical Education (AICTE) demanding that immediate modification is required
in the Approval Process Handbook (APH) 2018-19 by revising the faculty norms
and clear all ambiguities in respect of experiences for senior grade professors.
The APH contains rules and regulations for pharmacy education and other technical courses and it is revised every year. But the faculty norms for various educational programmes are not revised yearly.
Prof K Elango says in his letter to the chairman of the AICTE that the faculty norms of teachers in technical institutions including pharmacy colleges were last revised in 2010. As per the norms, experience calculated for senior grade professors includes the candidate’s experiences in industry practice and in research work.
Against this, the head of pharmacy at the college has informed the technical education regulator that it is unfair to take the industry and research experience of a candidate into account while deciding the qualifications for senior grade academic staffs to be appointed as assistant professors or associate professors or professors. He argues that, unlike other technical programmes, pharmacy teaching profession requires experience in teaching various subjects in the pharmaceutical sciences to become a professor. Mere experience in industry cannot be considered as an adequate experience to become a senior grade professor of a professional subject.
“The
research or industrial experience cannot be calculated at the academic level or
equated them with the academic experience required for an assistant professor /
associate professor / professor. Therefore, teaching experience alone should be
considered for teaching posts in Pharmacy Institutions. Professorship in senior
grade levels is a matter concerned of teaching experiences in various
subjects,” says the academic expert.
According to him, the formula given in the APH for calculation of teaching staffs in a degree college is also irrational and it requires revision. As regards the pharmacy course, there are five departments for the graduate course (B Pharm). They are Department of Pharmaceutics, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Department of Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacognosy and Department of Pharmacy Practice.
“The work load for these five departments is not equal, hence the number of teaching staffs requires for these five subjects differs. So, we cannot accept the formula of the approval process handbook of the AICTE as it is for calculating the staff strength,” said Prof. Elango in an interview with Pharmabiz. His college is affiliated to the MGR Medical University, Chennai and follows the norms of the university.
Another anomaly in the APH, Prof Elango highlights is that the number of in-take for lateral entry for B Pharm is not mentioned in the handbook. He suggests that it should be mentioned as 10 per cent of the total approved in-take of the under graduate programme.
Further, the number of faculty members is also required to be increased. According to AICTE proposal, a pharmacy college requires only one professor for managing all the five departments. But according to Pharmacy Council of India, Prof. Elango says, all the five departments need one professor each. This will help strengthen the pharmacy education system in the country.
PCI also proposes for non-teaching staff such as laboratory technicians, lab assistants, lab attenders, office superintendents, accountants, store keepers, data entry operators, computer operators, clerical staffs, peons, cleaning personnel and gardener. But the APH of the AICTE does not support all these, said Prof. Elango.
Source:
http://www.pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=110257&sid=1
