Oxygen for bio-tech campuses

The days of weak infrastructure, outmoded syllabi, and lack of funds for modernisation that plagued bio-tech education are now over.

Sample this. Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, has received 60,000 sq.ft of land to develop a new building for bio-technology.

The building will house research lab for faculties, central facilites for analytical studies, and a laboratory for bio-chemistry and genetic engineering. Earlier if the institute used to receive only Rs 1 lakh as grant, today the institute receives a grant of Rs 50 lakhs.

"Having done a course review, the campus has also introduced new courses like, computational biology for instance, that would instruct students on looking at alternative application of enzymes in human beings," says Krishnamurthy Rao, Professor & Head, School of Biosciences & Bioengineering, IIT Powai.

Moreover, the institute has also instituted an advisory committee whereby they have one person from the corporate sector as part of their advisory board. Currently the director of Wockhardt is part of this board.

In fact, IITs are not the only ones to be giving a face-lift. Other institutes are following suit. The department of bio-technology at the University of Mumbai for instance has received a sanction of around Rs 100 crore from various sources including the human resource department of the government, planning commission and University Grants Commission (UGC).

Accordingly the campus is upgrading the infrastructure, and adding new instruments to conduct research. "Also, earlier if we were getting grants to the tune of Rs 20 lakh, today we are receiving grants to the tune of Rs 30 lakh," says U S Bagde, Professor and Head, Department of Biotechnology & Biophysics, University of Mumbai.

Similarly, Pune University is looking at getting a modest grant of Rs 1 crore from the department of bio-technology, government of India. which will be utilised for replacing old equipments.

"We have a minimum standard of infrastructure in our campus. Till date, we have received funds to the tune of Rs 1 crore for various projects," says Prof. W N Gade, Department of Biotechnology, University of Pune.

As part of its course restructuring, the campus has rolled out more industry-relevant courses on stem cell technology, drug designing, bio chemical engineering,bio-informatics among others. Similarly, earlier if campuses were working on a thin faculty base or inefficient teaching staff, now they are evolving a solution for that too.

IIT-Bombay has deployed a slew of programmes to increase the number and competitiveness of its faculty base. From two faculties, today IIT-Bombay, has battery of twelve-odd faculties and they plan to up the strength to 20 in the next five to seven years. "The average ratio of faculty student is 1:12 but they expect this to go down further," says Krishnamurthy.

Then there are initiatives to increase the quality of teaching. The institute, for instance, allows every faculty to attend an institute sponsored international conference. Every seven years a faculty can take a sabbatical for one year to either pursue full-time research or even write a book and earn royalty which does not have to be given to the institute.

Earlier if faculties could have claimed only twice the salary as consultancy fee from the corporates, today there is no limit to the fee that they can charge corporates for consulting assignments. Prof.Gade for one has been a consultant to Unichem and Cadilla.

Similarly Mumbai university has also got six posts sanctioned from the government for hiring full time faculties, and the campus is also shifting into a new building whereby it hopes to have facilities to set up research laboratories.

Once the six permanent faculties are hired the faculty student ratio will be 40 students : six professors.

The campus is also undertaking a revision in the syllabi whereby it has constituted a committee of various scientists from Mumbai and outside to update the curriculum.