The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7200 p751-757
1 June 2002

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Manchester is the best school of pharmacy, says The Guardian

The Manchester school of pharmacy is the best in the United Kingdom, according to a league table in The Guardian on 28 May.

The Guardian ranked each school using its own teaching score out of 100, building this figure from published data on teaching assessments, spending per student, staff to student ratios, job prospects, reputation and value added from students' grades on entry and at graduation.

Both Manchester and Portsmouth schools of pharmacy scored 89.55 points on this scale, but Manchester appears to have topped the table with a higher spend per student and the endorsement given during its research assessment. The other eight entries in the top 10 for pharmacy were, in rank order, Nottingham (87.73), Strathclyde (85.68), Aston (85.45), London School of Pharmacy (85.45), Belfast (84.77), Cardiff (83.64), Brighton (82.95) and Bath (82.05).

The league table also gives details of students on the courses by gender and by ethnicity. All the top 10 schools have more female students than males, ranging from 52 per cent at Portsmouth to 74 per cent at Nottingham. Excluding Belfast (on 1.2 per cent), the percentage of students from ethnic minorities ranges from 15 per cent at Strathclyde and Cardiff to 88 per cent at London.

Details of the tables and how the rankings were calculated can be found on the Guardian's website. The site also includes rankings for the other six pharmacy schools.