‘Varsity failed to follow accreditation process’
PETALING JAYA: The university whose pharmacy graduates have not been able to get provisional licence to practise had missed one monitoring visit and failed to submit documents for full accreditation for the course for final audit in time for students’ graduation.
Malaysia Qualifications Agency (MQA) had only just received the documents for full accreditation from the university earlier this month, although the final examination was in October.
MQA CEO Datuk Prof Dr Rujhan Mustafa said the Pharmacy Board has scheduled today until Friday for an audit visit by the joint technical committee for full accreditation of the university’s Pharmacy Bachelor’s programme.
“Since the students have graduated, the university must call them back for assessment,” Dr Rujhan said.
He said MQA would also assess the material set by the university.
MQA normally takes seven months to process an application for full accreditation of a course after a university submitted the documents in full and the university should ideally send in the documents seven months before students’ final examination.
In the case of the affected university, the students completed their final examination in October but the documents were only submitted this month.
Dr Rujhan said it was important for universities to meet all the requirements and get full accreditation, otherwise, the students would suffer.
According to the Pharmacy Board, a university has to go through at least five audits, including once before the course is allowed to start, for a course to be accredited.
However, the university affected had missed one visit and had also delayed in submitting the documents for the final auditing, it said.
The board said universities must meet the requirements in order to get full accreditation otherwise, the graduates could not practise in Malaysia, whether in the public or private sector.
“We advise students to check the First Schedule of the Malaysian Registration of Pharmacists Act 1951 and regulations to see whether the course they are planning to take is recognised by the board,” it said.
Asked why the graduates were given provisional registered pharmacist licence since the school had not received full accreditation, it said it was due to confusion over the programme offered during the application process.