I bet everyone who will be starting their pre-registration year in community pharmacy 2009 have had known about the problem occured in applying working visa in UK.
Yes, because of community pharmacist and pharmacy techinicians are no longer on the list of national shortage occupations. And, because of another reason that our salary is below the national guideline. Because of these two reasons, many overseas pharmacy students who already got their offer in last summer (2008) to start their pre-registration year in community pharmacy in 2009 are going to lose their job.
Facebook is a new tool that overseas pharmacy students use to gather all the 'voices' hiding in different countries.
According to information from PJonline, UKBA will only review this problem in September. So, what does this means to all of us? We CANNOT start our pre-registration on the same day as stated in the offer letter.
What are we going to do next if we really cant get the working visa? Balik rumah? So, what is the part of purpose for studying a four years pharmacy course in UNITED KINGDOM? Why don't we just go to other countries like Australia?
I think the reason behind all of these "surprises" to pre-registration pharmacists is originated from economy recession. Even UK residents are losing their jobs, so why do they giving chances to people from overseas? Of course, they wouldn't do so.
Let's see what will happen. While waiting for the final decisions, we should figure out how to apply government service thing in Malaysia. Sigh...