Pharmacy graduate satisfaction scores 7.9
Today we hosted the webinar “Employability and University Training in Pharmacy: Satisfaction, Employment Outcomes and Pharmacies' Opinion”, where the results of the report Employability and university training in the field of Pharmacy were made public for the first time.
AQU Catalunya has today published the report Employability and university training in the field of Pharmacy, as part of the webinar organised by the Agency in collaboration with the “la Caixa” Banking Foundation and the Council of Pharmaceutical Associations of Catalonia.
This document offers a cross-sectional look at bachelor's degrees in Pharmacy, grouping the data that have emerged from the Satisfaction, Employment Outcomes and Employers' Opinion surveys that the Agency regularly carries out of students and the companies and organisations that hire graduates. In addition, this report also collects basic data on the bachelor's degree in Pharmacy, such as the ratio of supply of places to demand.
Among the most relevant data collected by AQU Catalunya are those that show the imbalance between the supply of places and the demand for them by students. In public universities, the demand for the degrees analysed far exceeds the number of places available. The number of places demanded is 60% higher than the number of places offered.
The report also reveals that people graduating in Pharmacy tend to have high overall satisfaction with their higher education in this field. Specifically, people who finish the degree in Pharmacy rate their satisfaction at 7.9 out of 10, and 81.6% of them also say that they would study the same degree again. Their assessments are higher than those of most higher education studies in the Catalan university system, and similar to the assessments shown by people with degrees in the health field.
The report also shows healthy employment outcomes for Pharmacy graduates, both in terms of the waiting time to land a job and working conditions. Almost 95% of pharmacy graduates find employment within three years of graduating. More than 70% perform tasks specific to their area of knowledge and with good working conditions, compared to the other groups of graduates analysed by AQU Catalunya. In relation to employment, finding work in commercial pharmacies remains the main source of employment for 47% of graduates, although there is a declining trend.
Unlike Pharmacy graduates, employers in pharmacies point to some deficits in relation to the profile coming out of universities, with 75% saying they have had problems hiring graduates, making Pharmacy the fourth economic sector of the eighteen compared that expresses the most difficulties on this issue. The main reason for discrepancy between graduate candidates for the jobs offered is the type of working day. The second problem that employers face is the lack of graduates. Regarding graduates' skills, employers are the second most dissatisfied and mainly criticise their lack of ability to provide therapeutic advice to pharmacy customers.
This report, which brings together the analysis of key data produced by AQU Catalunya to understand how university education operates from an employability perspective, aims to help people responsible for universities in the political and academic fields to establish policies aimed at improving university education. However, the knowledge contained in this report is also useful for current and future students when making informed decisions about their careers.
For more information on the results of the Employers in the Field of Pharmacy project, you can read the full report Employability and university training in the field of Pharmacy.
Also check out the infographic and rest of the documentation from the webinar and watch the video recording.