Pharmacy courses to be discontinued from Mahatma Gandhi University

There seem to be no takers for the pharmacy courses in College of Pharmacy, Cheruvandoor under Mahatma Gandhi University. It is the only institute in the Kerala to offer Nanotechnology research facilities in pharmacy.

More than 50% of the postgraduate (PG) seats in the college remain vacant, since the college started functioning in last few months.

College offers PG course in Pharmaceutics with 18 seats, Pharmacology with 18 seats, Pharmaceutical Chemistry with 5 seats and Pharmacognosy with 5 seats. Only 10% of seats filled out of 46. Due to the lack of vacant seats, students were shifted to the College of Pharmacy, Puthupally.

"It is not that the course has no demand. The students might have chosen to study in other colleges due to the delay in admission notification. Once they join the other colleges, they would not join our college even if they get admission here, because those colleges will not refund the fees they paid," said A J Chacko, associate professor at the College of Pharmacy, Cheruvandoor.

Admission to this college was carried after the private colleges admissions. This made the students not to opt for this college.

"There were two students for the Pharmacognosy course. Since the Puthupally campus does not have AICTE approval to run that course, those students could not be shifted there. Meanwhile, the students discontinued as they were not sure about the future of the course," said Sajan jose, another professor.

"The number of students opting for the course is very low. As per norms, we can discontinue a course if there is no minimum number of students," said Thanganathan, Director, SME.