Excellent status for pharmacy programme
THE Bachelor of Pharmacy programme at Quest International University Perak (QIU) has been fully accredited for the maximum five-year period by the Pharmacy Board of Malaysia and the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA), achieving an official status of ‘Excellent’ in the process.
The Excellent status indicates that the programme scored more than 90% in the evaluation of its good practices in quality development standards.
The accreditation saw QIU excel in 10 areas of good practice, including vision, mission and goals; curriculum design and delivery; educational programme; student selection and student support services; teaching and academic staff; educational resources; programme monitoring and review; leadership; governance and administration; total continuous quality improvement; and self-critique and outcome measures.
The accreditation process was carried out by an audit panel comprising of Pharmacy academicians from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pharmacy practitioners from the Ministry of Health and a representative from the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society.
Faculty of Pharmacy dean, Prof. Datuk Dr Allan Mathews said the accreditation recognised how the QIU Pharmacy programme had been developed to give undergraduates a realworld experience from the outset.
He explained that the innovative programme infused real world experience from Year 1 of the programme unlike traditional programmes where exposure to practice aspects is in the later years.
This, he noted, covered the three main tenets of pharmacy practice – clinical pharmacy, industrial pharmacy and community pharmacy.
QIU’s chief operating officer Nicholas Goh congratulated the faculty on its achievement, stressing that the programme was designed to ensure that the graduates were well-prepared to excel in the working world.
“The Pharmacy Board only requires students to undergo two weeks of training in clinical, industrial, and community pharmacy practice areas.
“However, our programme offers 20 weeks of attachment training, because we want to make sure that our graduates are prepared to excel when they start their careers.”
Goh also underlined the importance of seamlessly blending research with real-world experience.
“During their third and fourth years, pharmacy students spent 20% equivalent of an academic year carrying out research.
“Research and continuous learning is the hallmark of pharmacy practice,” he added.
These approaches allow the university’s pharmacy students to receive a unique learning experience, while also helping to create top-quality pharmacists of the future.
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