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The roles and responsibility of pharmacists have been evolving from product-oriented to patient-oriented service provision in the last two decades. A foundation of professional education and training is a key factor for health care professionals to develop the capability to improve therapeutic outcomes, enhance patients quality of life and help people to stay healthy, as well as advance science and practice. For pharmacy contemporary forms of initial education and training are vital for professions to meet the increasingly complex health care demands of populations in any country.

This 2013 FIPEd Global Education Report has presented the current pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences education and workforce situation across 109 countries and territories around the world, representing around 175,000 pharmacy students and 2,500 education institutions worldwide.

Data from the 2013 FIPEd Global Pharmacy Education Survey indicates that pharmacy education, in both capacity and infrastructure varies considerably between countries and WHO regions and generally correlates with population numbers and country level economic development indicators. Those countries and territories with lower economic indicators tend to have relatively lower educational capacity and pharmacist production. Furthermore, African countries tend to have lower educational capacity and supply pipelines for pharmacists. This has implications for future parity for access to medicines expertise. There needs to be an ongoing effort to ensure capacity building linked with initial education and training to meet the pharmaceutical health needs of populations.

The FIP Education Initiative (FIPEd) was established by FIP in 2011, with the mission to bring together organisations and leaders who are working to improve health through advancing pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences education. FIPEd works to stimulate transformational change in professional pharmacy, pharmaceutical sciences and pharmaceutical education to advance and develop our diverse profession towards meeting present and future health care needs around the world.

As part of its initiative to advancing pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences education FIPEd has developed the Global Competency Framework (GbCF Version 1), which contains a core set of behavioural competencies. It can be a starting point to provide guidance for foundation practice, not only at an individual level but also for further development into advanced practice, but it does not imply that there should be a single global curriculum that would fit all.

The 14 case studies (see Part 4 of this report) provided an overview of the transformation that is occurring in pharmacy and pharmaceutical science education globally. Notably

PART 7

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there is a shift to patient centred, team based practice and to clinically focussed, integrated curricula with several opportunities for patient and practice centred learning.

Nonetheless there is still a shortage of pharmacist academics and of clinical preceptors. Universities and policy makers will need to think of new and imaginative ways to attract young people into these roles. The understanding of pharmacy education and the factors that influence it, are essential for human resource planning and for achieving universal access to medicines. Collaboration with key partners including governments and national and international pharmacy organisations is crucial to achieving sustainable solutions to the issues surrounding pharmacy education.

FIPEd is committed to further progress the global understanding of education and invites all readers not just to read this report, but to actively participate, share experiences and strategies in addressing education challenges through the global FIPEd platform and communities of practice. The FIPEd Development Team aims to advocate and facilitate design and support tools for pharmacy education that are needs-based in their approach.