Enoch M

(2/2) The record of @VUKampala also deserves mention: • In mid-2023, @PharmacistsUg told @VUKampala to stop advertising a Bachelor of Pharmacy that was not yet accredited, and Prof. Muganga reportedly said PSU had no right to halt it (@DailyMonitor). • On 1 February 2024, @nche_uganda was reported to have cautioned @VUKampala over the same unaccredited BPharm course (@parrotsug). • In April 2024, the @VUKampala BPharm programme was accredited with a set limit on numbers (@kampalareportug). • On 19 October 2026, PSU raised concerns over reports of 364 students admitted by Victoria in one intake against an annual limit of 50, and asked for online pharmacy exams to stop (@PulseUganda). Holding a university to the conditions it accepted is not "gatekeeping" in my view. For a private university that runs on fees, every extra student brings in more money, so there may be an insatiable desire to enrol as many students as (im)possible. Regulation exists for this very purpose: commercial interest must never override public safety and interest. I take the @PharmacistsUg /@nche_uganda concerns as public-spirited rather than "gatekeeping". This conversation matters, because a patient in need of help does not have the time or opportunity to ask where the pharmacist trained. The patient simply trusts the professional, and that trust is sacred. It is earned through the quality and rigour of the pharmacist's training. If we allow profit to go ahead of quality and rigour and cut corners on tomorrow's professionals, the bill will come due at the dispensing counter, on the pharmaceutical manufacturing floor and in the quality of our pharmaceutical policy discourse, and patients will ultimately pay the painful price of these actions. I am also not persuaded by Prof. Muganga's thoughts on "education tourism". Foreign students come here only if their higher education regulators back home recognise the degree, and that depends on how seriously we guard its quality here. We cannot have our cake and eat it: we cannot expect to be the destination of choice for foreign pharmacy students and at the same time cry foul when a regulator asks us to abide by accreditation conditions. So, Prof @ReachDrMuganga, no one contests that Uganda needs many more pharmacists. But I am certain that you, too, want every pharmacist in our communities to be well trained: someone you would trust to hand medicine to your own child. Insisting on that is not gatekeeping. It is what we, as pharmacists and educators, owe the public. My 2 cents

(1/2) Uganda needs more pharmacists @ReachDrMuganga and I agree on that. Where we differ is how we go about getting more. I have never met a colleague pharmacist who wants fewer of us. @ReachDrMuganga and @VUKampala presents regulation or "gatekeeping" as the obstacle standing between young Ugandans and a career in science (e.g. in pharmacy). I see things the other way round. @WHO 2013 guidelines on scaling up health professional education say that expansion must improve quality, not just numbers, with accreditation at the centre. @FIP_org Workforce Development Goals (2016) and Nanjing Statements (2017) ring the same message: academic capacity and quality assurance must grow together. I took time to look at how leading pharmacy schools are sized. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (one of the top ranked pharmacy schools in the US) admits about 150 students a year and has about 550 in total, taught by over 110 faculty. Closer to home, @Makerere began with 10 a year and only expanded numbers after a dedicated school was built with enhanced facilities at the main university campus. @VUKampala request to @nche_uganda is for 250 students per intake, three intakes a year. That makes a total intake of 750 students a year for a programme first accredited in 2024. Over five years of the new BPharm programme, that is up to 3,750 pharmacy students at once, sharing biomedical science spaces with expanded nursing and midwifery cohorts. I also went through the published benchmarks. US accreditation standards (2025) say no more than about 10 students per faculty member (the actual reported US average is 8 students per lecturer). Nigeria's National Universities Commission set a ratio of 1:10 for pharmacy, as for medicine. Pakistan's Pharmacy Council requires 1:10 and one intake a year. Even India, known for training en masse, capped each institution at 60 or 100 BPharm seats and requires 1:20 (from ca. early 2025). Applying these benchmarks to Victoria's proposed 3,750 students, at 1:10 @VUKampala and @ReachDrMuganga would need to hire about 375 qualified pharmacy lecturers. Even at India's looser standard, he would need close to 190. Uganda simply does not have that many pharmacist educators to give to one programme. Prof. Muganga may say lecturers can be imported, but pharmacy is a practice-oriented profession, and in my humble view, students must learn to practise within Uganda's laws, health system and disease burden, preferably guided by people who have worked in them. Scaling student numbers without matching them to the training ecosystem is not a healthy strategy. Lecturers, lab places and internship slots cannot be produced as fast as admission letters, and our Ministry of Health already reports internship backlogs that have adversely affected students.