AICTE Approves Additional 57,000 Seats in Pharmacy Colleges
The field of Pharmacy has seen a rise in the number of seats and institutes that have been set up to educate students under different programmes for pharmacy. AICTE has approved a huge number of UG and PG seats in pharma institutions from this academic year.
All across India, the number of Pharmacy Institutes, as well as the number of seats in the field, have been increasing. In just the previous year, the seats have gone up by 30%, which is proved by the data collected by the All India Council for Technical Education.
In the academic year 2018-19, the number of seats that were offered by all the pharmacy colleges in India was around 2,04,951 seats. The number rose to 2,62,698 seats in the academic year 2019-20. In fact, the number of institutes for pharmacy had also increased from 2,306 pharmacy institutes in 2018-19, to 3,276 institutes in 2019-20.
As per the AICTE reports, around 589 new institutions will be offering diploma courses in Pharmacy whereas 253 will be undergraduate and postgraduate colleges. Uttar Pradesh is getting the most number of new Pharmacy Colleges, followed by Karnataka.
Anil D Sahasrabuddhe, who is the chairman of AICTE has stated that the number of students who have been opting for a course in Pharmacy in the past two years has increased. He added that they have been approving various pharmacy institutes all across the country last year. However, to curb the number of institutes that have been cropping up in the field of medicine, AICTE has made some changes to the approval stage of setting up an institute. They state that the colleges will now be approved only if they include all the necessary infrastructure and facilities required for the education of the students.
Sources state that colleges for pharmacy have had such an increase in the number of students getting enrolled under the different programmes, is because of the difficult competition that the students are facing in the other popular courses of medicine. As of last year, more than 50% of the students who have been enrolled under the various programmes for pharmacy have been placed in different jobs, meanwhile, the rest of the students have opted for higher studies.
Also Read:Here are the Top Pharmacy Colleges as per NIRF Rankings
Sources also state that institutes for pharmacy are expecting to receive more students in the coming academic years, however, concerns have been raised by various experts on the increase of the institutes that have been founded in the last few years.