The Department of Biotechnology is about to award Star status to 58 colleges across the country.
The Department of Biotechnology (DoB)under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology is in the final phase of awarding Star status to 58 colleges in the country that offer life science and biotechnology education at the undergraduate level. The selection committee, over the past several months, has chosen 58 out of many dozen colleges that had applied for the coveted Star category in biotechnology education.
Suman Govil, who handled the Star programme, said that the Department of Biotechnology had asked for more funds to support the programme. However, she declined to give any further details of the programme, which is expected to support the selected colleges in a big way.
It was early this year that the DoB invited applications from colleges and university departments offering undergraduate education in biotechnology and life sciences for awarding the Star College status, as part of its drive to offer young scholars an opportunity to excel.
The Star award proposal was part of the National Biotechnology Development Strategy announced by the Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Kapil Sibal, a few months ago. The strategy was an outcome of a two-year-long nationwide consultation process with multiple stakeholders, including different Ministries; universities; research institutes; private sector; civil society; consumer groups; non-government and voluntary organisations; and international bodies.
According to Mr. Sibal, biotechnology has been recognised as a sunrise sector and, as it needs focused attention, the government chalked out a broad strategy, including the award of Star status to colleges with ambition and potential for excellence. By the programme, the government is aiming at providing academic and physical infrastructure for achieving excellence in teaching and unique exposure for students to experimental science.
The objectives of the Star College programme include not only the strengthening of the academic and physical infrastructure and enhancing the quality of learning, but also stimulating original thinking through hands-on exposure to experimental work and participation in summer schools. It will also promote networking and strengthen ties with neighbouring institutions and other laboratories. It will increase capabilities of core instrumentation resources by procuring new equipment and upgrading of existing facilities. DoB provide a one-time non-recurring grant up to Rs.10 lakh for each science department of the college selected and recurring annual grant of Rs.2 lakh for two years for consumables. Another annual grant of Rs.1 lakh for contingency to cover expenses on visiting faculty, guest lectures and seminars will be provided to each science department for two years. The Centre will continue support for another three years based on the evaluation of performance by the colleges.
Colleges with minimum 10 years of experience in life science subjects and offering minimum four undergraduate courses in basic life science such as botany, zoology, applied life science, microbiology, physiology, biochemistry and biotechnology could apply. The eligibility criteria the colleges had to meet also included having at least five permanent faculty in each science department and three faculty with Ph.D. The faculty improvement programme stipulated by the Department of Biotechnology as part of the programme included participation in summer courses for skill upgradation; curriculum change to ensure more hands-on laboratory work; greater emphasis on communicating research and research process to students; introduction of internal review process by students; and student feedback about faculty competence.
Parameters such as increase in proportion of hands-on experimental work by students, increased access of undergraduate students to laboratory and bioinformatics infrastructure, improvement in access to life sciences related journals and increase in percentage of students pursuing life science as a career will be considered for measuring the progress of the programme.
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