Jamshedpur, July 23: The new academic session has given students of DBMS English School and DAV Bistupur reasons to rejoice.

A bio-technology course has been introduced this year in these schools. These two will be first and only ICSE and CBSE schools in town to have this subject in the plus-two curriculum.

“When the Council offered the course I asked the outgoing class X batch how many of them would like to take up bio-technology in place of biology at the plus-two level. The number in favour of the proposal was overwhelming,” Prema Balasubramanian, principal, DBMS, said.

In DBMS, 22 students out of 45 have chose bio-technology. In DAV, the number is around 30. For DAV students, however, both bio-tech and biology will be compulsory.

“Students with bio-technology have an edge over others. Later on, they can pursue courses related to the subject. Having had bio-technology at the plus-two level will make things comparatively easy for them,” said Uma Ramna, who teaches bio-technology in DBMS.

Bio-informatics, genetic engineering and instrumentation are areas open to bio-tech graduates. The plus-two syllabus covers animal, plant and microbial bio-technology.

“We are lucky we have this subject,” said Mudit Swaroop of DBMS who wants to do genetic engineering. His classmate Ritika Bihany too has similar plans. Ritika intends to study at IIT where bio-technology has been recently launched.

Apart from Annamalai University, Jawaharlal Nehru University (Delhi) and BIT, Mesra, many colleges in Bangalore and Manipal offer courses in bio-technology.

“I chose this subject for the wide scope it offers. Besides, I am interested in biology but do not want to do medicine,” said Shiv Kumar Ganesh of DBMS.

The the biology lab of DBMS is being upgraded cater to the needs of the students. Spectrophotometers, calorimeters, PH meters, an autoclave, incubators for bacterial culture, binocular microscope and other equipment are being procured for the bio-technology practical classes.

Practicals will include electrophoresis, DNA estimation and culturing micro-organisms.