Quality Management in Pharmacy Pre-registration Training: Current Practice

BACKGROUND: The Royal Pharmaceutical Society conducted a review of pharmacy education policy in its ‘Making pharmacy education fit for the future’ project. The future quality management of pharmacy pre-registration training was included within the scope of the review. AIM: To identify and review practice examples of quality management in current pharmacy pre-registration training programmes, in England, Scotland and Wales. METHODS: Mixed methods including documentary analysis, a survey of pharmacy pre-registration stakeholders, and individual interviews. RESULTS: The questionnaire was sent to 27 organisations in total; responses were received from all 27. Twelve respondents (9 secondary care, 2 community pharmacy, 1 industry) reported having developed standards in addition to the RPSGB standards that their training programmes were required to meet. Quality management tools used by pharmacy pre-registration training providers included site visits and tutor and trainee questionnaires. CONCLUSION: This paper describes some the tools of quality management that have been adopted and developed by providers of pharmacy pre-registration training. It has identified pockets of good practice, but there is a clear need for a national quality management system in pharmacy pre-registration training

Professionalizing the “resilience” sector in the Pacific Islands Region: Formal education for capacity building

Increasingly practitioners and policy makers working across the globe are recognising the importance of bringing together disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change adaptation (CCA). This broader Pacific understanding of climate change as a slow-acting disaster has been adopted by the European Union Pacific Technical Vocational Education and Training on Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Adaptation Project (EU PacTVET) project in introducing innovative initiatives to address wide ranging needs. A key barrier to improving national resilience to disaster risk and climate change impacts has been identified as a lack of capacity and expertise at all levels resulting from the absence of sustainable accredited and quality assured formal training programmes in the DRM and CCA sectors. A key issue is providing an accreditation and quality assurance mechanism for formal training shared across the region through the national delivery of regionally quality assured qualifications in Resilience (CCA and DRM). TVET training modules and tools developed under the EU PacTVET project will be reviewed by industry and the scientific community through the Pacific Regional Federation of Resilience Practitioners. This professional association alongside the development of regional qualifications is ground breaking and providing global leadership and will ensure the sustainability of the project’s outcomes

Knowledge Management Concepts For Training By Project An observation of the case of project management education

Project management education programmes are often proposed in higher education to give students competences in project planning (Gantt's chart), project organizing, human and technical resource management, quality control and also social competences (collaboration, communication), emotional ones (empathy, consideration of the other, humour, ethics), and organizational ones (leadership, political vision, and so on). This training is often given according a training-by-project type of learning with case studies. This article presents one course characterized by a pedagogical organization based upon Knowledge Management (KM) concepts: knowledge transfer and construction throughout a learning circle and social interactions. The course is supported by a rich and complex tutor organization. We have observed this course by using another KM method inspired from KADS with various return of experience formalized into cards and charts. Our intention is, according to the model of Argyris and Sch\"on (Smith, 2001), to gain feedback information about local and global processes and about actors' experience in order to improve the course. This paper describes precisely the course (pedagogical method and tutor activity) and the KM observation method permitting to identify problem to solve. In our case, we observe problem of pedacogical coordination and skills acquisition. We propose to design a metacognitive tool for tutors and students, usable for improving knowledge construction and learning process organisationComment: 6

FORMAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT ADOPTION READINESS OF EMERGING CONSTRUCTION FIRMS IN SOUTH AFRICA:

Published ThesisThe drive towards Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment in this industry has been marred by evidence of poor quality construction, delays in project execution and completion leading to cost overruns and general public dissatisfaction with Emerging Construction Firms’ (ECFs’) structures. Since some of these challenges are attributed directly to poor project management practices and dearth of project management skills by most ECFs, there is scope to examine the interface between construction entrepreneurship and adoption of project management practices/techniques mindful of the ECFs’ involvement in government’s construction programmes and projects. It is against this background that the current study explored the formal project management adoption readiness of ECFs in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality. The thesis statement of this study is that since organisational culture, organisational structure and project management skills constitute the foundation for successful project management, any effective model on project management readiness of ECFs should strongly dovetail with their business strategy as well as these organisational variables. Drawing on a survey design, data were collected from 334 ECFs graded at category 1 to 5 by the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality of the Free State province of South Africa. The key findings from the empirical study are: Although majority of the ECFs surveyed have high levels of qualification in general education, only a few actually have high level of project management qualification. Majority of the ECFs surveyed also consider project management skills core skills in undertaking projects in order to achieve successful project outcomes. The current organisational culture and structure of the ECFs surveyed largely support the adoption and implementation of project management techniques and tools. The study recommends project management, construction and business education training for ECFs. In addition, the study recommends research into actual project management adoption of ECFs as this study was only limited to exploring adoption readiness

Professionalising the 'resilience' sector in the Pacific Islands region: formal education for capacity building

Increasingly practitioners and policy-makers recognise the importance of integrating disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change adaptation (CCA). This approach has been adopted by the European Union Pacific Technical Vocational Education and Training on Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Adaptation Project (EU PacTVET) project. A key barrier to improving national resilience to disaster risk and climate change impacts has been identified as a lack of capacity and expertise resulting from the absence of sustainable accredited and quality-assured training programmes. TVET modules and tools developed under the EU PacTVET project will establish a community of practitioners supporting community resilience in Oceania

Responding to challenges: the training and educating of the information professional for the next millenium

“… in most fields the issue of the professional competence and qualification of individuals is viewed as an integral part of the quality assurance of organisations and the services that they provide.” This view has long been embraced within the librarianship profession. Librarians and information professionals have a strong culture of responding to new opportunities in professional development to ensure that their skills meet the continually changing environments in which they work. This is illustrated by initiatives such as the Library Associations programme of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), Masters programmes for librarians entering management positions, increased availability of qualifications and training for paraprofessional staff and the adoption of the government instituted system of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SNVQs). Two further initiatives have been undertaken as a response to concern about the pace of change and the importance of sustaining an adequately skilled professional workforce. Firstly, the Library and Information Studies Training and Education Network (LISTEN), is working with employers, the profession and educational institutions to identify, CPD and post-qualification competencies required when staff have been in post for several or more years. Secondly, the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) which aims to accelerate the development and uptake of the ‘electronic library’ has recognised the need for CPD and has funded a number of training and awareness projects including EduLib. This paper will examine the role, education and training of information professionals from two distinct points of view. First the paper will concentrate on initial undergraduate training which students receive at an established Department of Library and Information Studies — with particular regard to the training and education of business information in order to prepare students for the global business world. The second part of the paper will deal with an aspect of continuing professional development for which there is an increasing demand in academic libraries — teaching skills for librarians. The paper will focus on EduLib — a development project which aims to provide a nationally recognised and accredited network of trainers in academic libraries

Social Effectiveness of Tertiary Education for Adults in Mid-life

No abstract available

LSS, a problem solving skill for graduates and SMEs: Case Study of investigation in a UK Business School curriculum

Purpose - This research aims to investigate the feasibility of a systematic Lean Six Sigma (LSS) education through the curriculum of business schools to respond to the existing gap between the graduate’s expectation of employability and skill requirements by the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Design/approach/methodology - One UK business school has been used as a case study to conduct an extensive module and programme review followed by a semi-structured interview with the potentially suitable core and programme-specific module leaders and also the comparative Analysis between content of these modules and the existing LSS high-street training themes. Findings – The result revealed a high potential of the existing modules in the business schools equivalent to the private sector training providers to increase the level of LSS problem solving knowledge and skill for all graduates and improve their employability and productivity for the SMEs. Practical implications/limitations – This research has been carried out in a single UK–based Business School through a qualitative approach. A further in-depth analysis in a broader scale is required to investigate the practical implications in a better way. Originality/Value – The result of this study highlights the role of LSS to reduce the knowledge and skill gap between the business schools as the source of the explicit knowledge, graduates as the knowledge and skill bearer, and SMEs as the knowledge and skill users