Table 2

Deployment of SF course at different universities

FactorsDescriptionQuotes
Enablers
  • Participation in course development and ownership

  • Support from WHO, FIP and other partners

  • Adequate preparation of teachers with Train-the-Trainers training

  • Availability of course materials; bilingually available materials

  • Sufficient measures for alignment with existing pharmacy courses

  • Course development coincided with overall University curriculum revision— support from university leadership

  • With support from university leadership course is standalone and compulsory

  • “Often when we prepare a lesson, we try to manage the documents with which we are going to prepare a training support, but here it is already prepared in advance, with updated data, excellent examples and very concrete cases. (…) We participated in the development providing our input and insights of what are likely to be the needs of our students.”

  • “The project’s start and course development coincided with major undergraduate pharmacy curriculum revision at the university. (…) Because we were involved in the development of the new course from the beginning, we were able to take sufficient measures to ensure that the course aligned well with other obligatory pharmacy courses at our university.”

Barriers
  • Time constrains for course delivery; time constraints for pre-deployment preparation

  • Lack of equipment for practical case studies, for example, provision of reference standards for Mini-Labs as university could not buy the reference tablets and equipment for practical case studies (eg, use of Global Pharma Health Fund Minilabs, detection tools, terrain work, etc)

  • Lack of adequate teaching space (room size)

  • Lack of internet access (and affordability), for example, some students had to buy internet passes to connect for the assessment

  • Lack of support from university leadership to run the course as mandatory part of pharmacy curriculum

  • Lack of support from the local authorities

  • “The level of difficulty is in relation to the timing.(…) If we had the authorisation of the deanery to integrate the modules in the courses, it could facilitate the management of the timing, so that we would have an agenda with the necessary time to meet the objectives.”

  • “We thought the course will take a shorter time, but once we started teaching, we realised we needed more time. When you are teaching, you are not simply reading the slides, you have to explain to the students, and give examples as it is a new topic for them, it was time more consuming.”

  • “Students (…) need practicals. For example, using kits to demonstrate so that after graduation, they know what is about. We have a good experience of Minilab, we would have used it for this course but the reference standards have expired.”

  • “Solvents we can easily replace but we are not able to buy the reference tablets anymore.”

Motivation of students
  • Lot of interest from the students in this topic, with main feedback of it being useful for their future professional life

  • Students could relate the teaching material to media reports

  • The classes were full

  • “Students were very participative during the lectures.”

  • “Students were very interested, (…) because it is directly related to the daily life as pharmacists.”

Important environmental factors
  • COVID-19-related restrictions, for example, social distance, students wearing masks in class

  • Context of the revival of the pharmaceutical industry as part of stimulation of local production to achieve therapeutic sovereignty and consequently, pharmacy reforms are expected

  • Overall university curriculum revision

  • “We taught in the circumstances of COVID-19, for example, students had to wear masks.”

  • “(…) there is a revival of the local pharmaceutical industry, which interests the students a lot. This course allows them to better communicate and inform the population.”

  • SF, substandard and falsified.