CULTIVATING SOFT SKILLS

eral courses as part of the approaches by the Higher Education Ministry to improve the student’s communication skills, the majority of graduates were rated as mediocre.

Lack of academic and social success among students in higher education was also caused by academic entitlement, defined as a student’s perception that he deserves good grading and educational services despite putting minimal efforts towards achieving academic success. They may neglect the importance of personality development and do not comprehend the impact of lacklustre performance at university until they have entered the workforce.

In addition to a repertoire of knowledge and hard skills, pharmacy graduates must be equipped with good soft skills to be efficacious in their professional practice, especially when collaborating with other healthcare professionals to make clinical decisions. Soft skills can be defined as having emotional intelligence and the ability to use technical abilities and knowledge effectively.

Students can develop the desirable qualities employers usually seek early on while they are at university, for instance through social interactions. The important elements that make good soft skills are communicative and thinking skills, problem-solving ability, teamwork, lifelong learning and information management, leadership, entrepreneur skills, ethics, high moral standards and professionalism.

There are many ways to develop these including:

Community pharmacists are involved in the management of a pharmacy selling a wide range of pharmaceutical, herbal and health care products, cosmetics and supplements. The community pharmacists on site can act as preceptors to help set the stage for the graduate’s initial encounter with pharmacy practice. Basic information management and thinking and communicative skills required of a good pharmacist can be strengthened if a student works as an assistant to

The writer is a senior lecturer at the Pharmacy Practice department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA Selangor. Email her at education@nst.com.my