Academic and Institutional Capacity: A Global Issue

Abstract

Pharmacistsinmanycountriesaretoofewinnumberandtrainedatacriticallyinsufficientscale.Onaverageinthe United Kingdom, for example, there is 1 pharmacistfor every 1,300 people. In Uganda, there is 1 for every140,000, and local health authorities estimate that thereis only one third of the required pharmacist workforce.Ethiopia has only 1000 pharmacists in a country witha population of 80 million, and in Malawi, where a newschoolofpharmacyhasrecentlyopened,thereareonly30pharmacists. The scaling up and quality improvement ofpharmacy education and training is essential for tacklingworkforceshortages,meetingbasichealthneeds,andsav-inglives.Thecapacitytoprovidepharmaceuticalservicesin each country is dependent on 2 workforce needs: anappropriately trained pharmacyworkforce to providetheservices,andacompetentandcommittedacademicwork-force to train sufficient numbers of new pharmacists andother pharmacy support staff at both basic and enhancedlevels.Theseeachdependonappropriatelyresourcedac-ademic institutions composed of students who have thenecessary intellectual and emotional competence to bechange agents for health in their communities.One response to the global shortage of pharmacistshas been an increase in the size and number of pharmacyschools in both developed and developing countries. Anexpansioninthenumberofpharmacygraduatesoccurredor was recommended in the United Kingdom,