GSEA model outcomes in pharmaceutical workforce development: a retrospective pilot study (2023-2025)

The pharmaceutical industry faces structural challenges, such as high compliance costs and rapid technological change, which hinder sustainable workforce development in small- and medium-sized cities. Traditional school-enterprise models often fail to address these constraints, leading to persistent misalignment between educational provision and industry needs. This study addresses both practical and theoretical gaps in workforce development for a highly regulated sector that is also integral to the public health infrastructure in resource-constrained settings.

This retrospective evaluation examines a pilot government-school-enterprise-association (GSEA) intervention implemented from 2023 to 2025 and assesses its observed associations with pharmaceutical workforce development and industry-education integration. It also clarifies the model's intended theoretical contribution, namely as a governance arrangement for translating public policy into professional standards and curriculum-practice alignment in a highly regulated industry.

A retrospective evaluation of a pilot intervention was conducted in a prefecture-level city in eastern China. The GSEA model was implemented as a pilot program from January 2023 to December 2025, with formal ethical approval and a comprehensive assessment conducted in 2025. Data from routine program monitoring-including stakeholder surveys (n = 326), interviews (n = 28), and administrative panel data (n = 1,200 students)-were analyzed retrospectively using structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine governance mechanisms and their associations with talent development, school-enterprise cooperation, and industry service capacity.

The implementation of the GSEA model was associated with significant improvements in workforce alignment: the professional employment rate increased from 68.3 to 89.5%, and enterprise satisfaction with graduates rose by 23.6%. The observed improvements were also accompanied by model-consistent patterns, in which policy support was related to association-led standard translation, curriculum-practice alignment, and enterprise participation. Given the retrospective observational design, these findings are interpreted as associative rather than causal.

The GSEA model offers a context-sensitive governance framework for workforce development in highly regulated industries. This model is particularly relevant in settings with sufficient policy coordination, intermediary capacity, industry participation, and minimum fiscal support. Future research should test the model using multi-site quasi-experimental and longitudinal designs.