Mission and Objectives of Faculty of Pharmacy,

Ain Shams University, Egypt.

Background:

Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University (FPASU) is usually described as a new school in an old university. The term “new” is designated to the school not only due to its recent establishment in 1994, but also due to its modern approach in management, syllabi, structure and ambitions toward better education and research. This fact attracted high school graduates allover the country to study in FPASU.  Therefore, since the beginning of the study in FPASU in the year 1995/1996, the school receives every year the top 400 students, among ~500,000 high school students, with highest scores in the national high school exam. This astonishing reality always encourages us to improve school courses and capabilities to educate these “intelligent” students.

In the year 2004/2005, ~2500 undergraduate students are enrolled in FPASU in the 5 years program, in addition to ~160 graduate students are registered for M.Sc. & Ph.D. degrees. Total faculty members, including teaching assistants, are 126 whereas faculty employees are ~102. The school comprises 9 scientific departments including Pharmacology & Toxicology, Pharmacognosy, Clinical Pharmacy, Microbiology & Immunology, Biochemistry, Drug Technology, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and Pharmaceutical Analytical Chemistry. These departments teach undergraduates 68 courses with a total of 192 credit hours. The language of study for both undergraduate and graduate programs is English.

The school is currently located in a new modernized facility, which provides us with adequate space and facilities necessary for implementing school mission and objectives. The school produces distinguished graduates serving society and pharmacy community since the year 2000.

Vision:

FPASU's vision is to be a leading internationally accredited pharmacy-education institution in the Middle East; offering high quality academic programs comparable to those at the best universities worldwide.  We aim to transform the Faculty into center of excellence in research as well as in undergraduate and graduate education.

Mission:
            FPASU's mission is to provide the society with capable and skilled pharmacy graduates who are dedicated to the betterment of health services. This mission is in complying with the mission of Ain Shams University that targets environmental and societal development.  This can be achieved by adopting an educational philosophy that promotes a fruitful combination of critical thinking and practical work within a center of scientific and creative excellence. Such education blends a global perspective with national cultures while being relevant to the pharmacy needs of Egypt.

Our mission would also highlight the importance of good research by providing the best facilities to graduate students to innovate in such rapidly developing fields of pharmacy. Pharmacy education in our institution would also ensure continuous improvement and commitment to excellence in learning, intellectual contributions, societal service and patient care in all practice settings.

This mission can only be succefull if pharmacy education in FPASU complies with the academic reference standards of pharmacy education in Egypt & meets the  expectations of the important stakeholders of the profession including, students, faculty staff and employees, alumni, the pharmacy community, and the society.

Objectives:

FPASU's objectives are inspired by several ideals and values including; scientific freedom, social responsibility, personalized learning, methodological attentiveness, problem solving, mutual discussions, quality assurance, and self respect. With a vision of becoming the premier internationally accredited college of pharmacy in Egypt, we aim to implement the following:

1)     To attain dynamic and innovative curricula; since we feel that current undergraduate pharmacy students are not graduated with adequate abilities and professional skills that satisfy the local and international needs. Therefore, a rather important objective is to ensure modifying our undergraduate and graduate curricula on a continuous basis to cope with the monumental advancements in pharmacy education with a focus on specific societal needs for graduates to practice pharmaceutical care in all health settings.

2)     To Nurture both undergraduate and graduate students with the aforementioned values, written in the introduction of the objectives, by providing multidisciplinary programs that encourage the development of an entrepreneurial spirit with emphasis on creativity, innovation, motivation, team-working, and scientific competence.

3)     To support the resurrection of  target –focused programs during the last two years of undergraduate study  that direct the students to study areas of emphasis in advanced topics in industry, community pharmacy, biotechnology, drugs of natural origin, research and quality control. This will facilitate the creation of professional skills in students and allow them to select the areas they like to advance in their future.

4)     To provide an interactive learning environment that fosters faculty-student communication and promotes lifelong learning and career development.

5)     To ensure that appropriate contemporary facilities are most readily available for serving new teaching and learning methodologies and research such as well-ventilated variable- size lecture and seminar halls equipped with adequate audio-visual aids (overhead projectors, data shows, and TV), well-ventilated properly-equipped student and research labs, updated library, reasonable animal house, advanced pilot plant scale-up lab,  medicinal plant fields, and other facilities for student recreation and extracurricular activities.

6)     To create quality culture, environmental awareness and societal responsibilities among faculty staff, employees as well as students.

7)     To enhance faculty staff, employees and student involvement in local, national and international professional and extracurricular activities.

8)     To motivate continuous upgrading of faculty staff and employees as well as students with respect  to education, professional skills, knowledge, morality, and experience, through training, courses, seminars, lectures & workshops.

9)     To shift, as much as possible, our major research interests to a number of rapidly advancing areas like drug design and development, clinical pharmacokinetics, natural products, signaling-based therapies, pharmacogenomics, molecular biology, advanced drug delivery systems, pilot plant scale-up techniques and biotechnology.

10)  To encourage interdisciplinary research programs between different departments in FPASU and between FPASU and other research institutions.

11)  To nurture the sources of knowledge for faculty staff, employees as well as students by supplying the library with a proper computer center that facilitates easy Internet access to World Wide Web as well as scientific search engines.

12)  To update our research capabilities by fetching the resources necessary for providing adequate raw materials, chemicals, scientific equipments for performing a good research and to provide departments with educational and research facilities such as computers, printers, scanners, copying machines .

13)  To establish close partnerships with the pharmacy community and pharmaceutical industry, through consultancies and services, that enhances the intellectual quality and economics of pharmaceutical services. This will emphasize the role of the university in serving society.

14)  To help graduates to find jobs in pharmaceutical fields that complies with their interests and professional skills and to follow their career development.