[Perspectives of pharmaceutical education--while explaining the related evaluation standards and their viewpoints of...

In 2013, a program to be implemented by the Japan Accreditation Board for Pharmaceutical Education, Third-party Pharmaceutical Education Evaluation, was initiated. The purposes of this program are: 1) to ensure the quality of education programs; 2) to promote their improvement; and 3) to provide support to actively obtain public understanding and cooperation. In the next 7 years, all pharmaceutical departments and universities will undergo this third-party evaluation. The evaluation standards specify the necessity of establishing indices to evaluate goal achievement levels and to ensure appropriate evaluation based on standards in a number of very important domains of pharmaceutical education. They also emphasize that it is necessary to similarly evaluate overall learning achievement levels in undergraduate degree accreditation. On the other hand, the revision of pharmaceutical education models and core curricula was also proposed and considered in 2013, and preparations for the adoption of revised curricula are currently proceeding. The revised models and core curricula are mainly characterized by setting learning goals within a learning-achievement-based education approach, taking into consideration the 10 qualities to be achieved before graduating. In line with this, in order to nurture pharmacists who appropriately meet social needs by enhancing the quality of their education and training, it is crucial for universities to establish methods to appropriately evaluate learning goal achievement levels as a basis for the realization of these qualities. In this article, appropriate pharmaceutical education curricula, particularly evaluation methods, will be discussed from the above-mentioned perspectives, while explaining the related third-party evaluation standards and their viewpoints.