Housed in the narrow by lanes of the old walled city of Delhi, where the modern Metro train and the horse-drawn cart compete for space, Nandula Raghuram's teaching laboratory provides a haven for three dozen budding biotechnologists. Hampered by inadequate supplies and equipment, the 42-year-old molecular biologist at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) here makes do.
Absent the large, expensive glass columns normally used for gel filtration, students separate proteins using ordinary surgical syringes whose ends have been plugged with latex tubes and tied off with thin rubber bands. "It's a low-cost, low-tech solution, but it allows each student to get his hands wet," he says.
Raghuram is an atypical teacher in a typical Indian university. Born into a middle-class family from a small town in southern India, Raghuram earned a Ph.D. in 1995 from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and worked for industry before becoming a science policy analyst at the Center for Science and Environment here. He has also toiled as a science writer and is active in the Society for Scientific Values, a nongovernmental watchdog body that investigates scientific misconduct in India. In 2002, he became a Reader (the equivalent of an associate professor) at GGSIPU, created in 1999 as the youngest of six universities in this capital city. It allowed him to return to what he calls "my first love: doing and teaching science."
He devotes half of his 6-day, 65-hour workweek to teaching bachelor's and master's degree students at the university's School of Biotechnology, which accepts only 1% of the applicants for its 35 slots. That stiff competition reflects the popularity of the university's applied sciences curriculum and the success of graduates in finding good jobs, says Prakash Chand Sharma, dean of the school. In 2004, Raghuram was voted the university's best teacher based on what he believes is his success in answering a seemingly obvious question that few Indian professors actually ask: What do we want our students to learn in this class, and what skills do they need to acquire for that learning to take place?
Raghuram prefers using chalk and blackboard rather than PowerPoint presentations, explaining that his job is "not to show off my techie skills but to explain concepts through discussion." His first Ph.D. student, Ravi Ramesh Pathak, calls him an "unconventional guide who gives his students total freedom for a holistic learning experience." But Raghuram laments "the declining popularity of teaching as a profession" among his peers and society as a whole.
In addition to teaching, Raghuram spends a quarter of his time doing basic science research on how plants take up and use nitrogen. With help from his three current graduate students, his lab has published more than 20 papers. The university pays his salary, and his research is funded by grants from various sources, including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Science and Technology. The rest of his time is devoted to administrative duties, he says, including attending to students and colleagues who cluster around his small office sandwiched between the registrar's and vice chancellor's office.
"Raghuram is both a good communicator and researcher," says Sharma. But his many responsibilities, Sharma adds, means that "his teaching does suffer at times."
The School of Biotechnology offers students no formal career counseling, so Raghuram also tries to give them guidance. Sharma says about a third of the biotech graduates remain in school for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, and a third go abroad for advanced degrees in the life sciences. The remainder go to work for companies or another institution. Ironically, Raghuram has never studied overseas, although he has traveled widely. "Doing science differently in India is what I have strived for while ensuring that my students also grow and blossom," he says.
GGSIPU is part of the government's plan to double over a decade the 9.2 million bachelor's degrees awarded each year. And Raghuram is motivated by the fact that GGSIPU students don't have the stellar background of those who vie for the 5000 or so coveted spots each year at the seven elite Indian Institutes of Technology across the country. He hopes that his work at GGSIPU will help the country build a system of higher education that shatters the current pattern of "islands of excellence in an ocean of mediocrity." Syringe by syringe, he's doing exactly that.
Source: Science AAAS
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