Hyderabad: The Osmania University and JNTU, Hyderabad are refusing to accord the prefix ‘Doctor’ to Doctor of Pharmacy students. Their certificates names the degree as Pharma D, despite clear orders from the country's top pharmacy body not to do so.
While 50 colleges in Telangana offer the Pharma.D. course, 26 colleges are affiliated with the JNTU-H and 12 with OU. The universities have granted the certificates with the unprescribed nomenclature for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 batches, affecting a total of 2,300 Pharm.D. graduates.
When similar incidents occurred in the past, the Pharmacy Council of India issued a directive to all the universities suggesting the correct nomenclature that is to be printed in the Pharm.D. certificates. Responding to the students’ complaints, the Telangana State Council for Higher Education had issued a specific order to these two universities in last September on this problem.
However, the administrations of both the universities have not arrived at a conclusion so far. “How can we give the doctor's degree to pharmacy students,” asked JNTU-H registrar N. Yadaiah, unconvinced by the orders of the PCI and TSCHE. He said the university had referred the issue to the standing committee and was awaiting its response.
The stand of OU administration is also by and large the same, according to the affected graduates. “We have studied six years to get the doctor degree and today we are denied our legal entitlement,” complained Mr Chandrasekhar Nayak, president of a Pharm.D. students’ group.
He said if the universities do not take a decision in time, the 2015-16 batch that comes out in next June will also meet with the same fate, he warned.
