Industry – Institute Partnership:

A Panacea for Higher Education

Relevance and Sustainability

Presented by:
Weena Yancey M Momin
Research Scholar
School for Management Studies
Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University
(A Central University)
Lucknow
 Contents
• Introduction
• Need for Partnership
• Significance of Partnership
• Institute – Industry Alignment
• The Partnerships – A Panacea
• Conclusion
 Introduction
• Human capital - a key element in generating a
future progress for every nation.
• Becker (1993) - human capital is the crucial
element in explaining
o the rise and fall of nations

• The country’s future - economic superpower

o improvement of demographic prosperity for which the Higher education
sector has to react with dynamism to keep a pace with job creation.
 Need for Partnership
• Growing complication in academic and business world and
frequently shifting needs of the industry
• Increasing criticality of human competence in the organizations
for creating and sustaining the competitive edge over its
competitors
• Change in management pattern of business schools from former
academic models to revenue based models. ;
• Developing competition for student placements and industry
mind-share, with fast escalation in the number of business schools
and hence the management graduates;
• Rising burden from industry to make their fresh inductees more
productive from day one to reduce the subsequent training costs.
• Greenberger (2001) states organizations today are considering
the trained professionals and students that are capable of taking
managerial decisions.
• training in formative years arises out from business corporations,
via collaborative internships with companies to develop learning
opportunities to students;
• Increasing interdependence between academia and industry to
satisfy the need for sustenance and innovation in their respective
areas.
Significance of the Partnership for
Higher education

Industry
- Curriculum development
- Research projects
- Resource sharing
- Familiarizing with the
industry culture
- Placement facilities
- Bridging Skill gap

Institute
 Cases
• Maruti Suzuki India is adopting 40 state-run technical
schools to create a customized labor pool, needed to
fuel its Rs.18, 000 crore expansion in Gujarat.
• Centum Learning (Bharti Group) - work with companies
to understand their skill set requirements over a period of
time and then work backward to decide what courses
they should launch and where should they open new
training centers
• Team Lease, a people supply chain company, is
emphasizing on backward integration. There are dozens
of training companies with ambitions of training millions
in engineering, construction, manufacturing, retailing,
insurance, banking services including microfinance,
accountancy, hospitality, healthcare and other
vocations, sprouting up around India.
 The shortfall
• educational institutes are not equipped to impart
practical knowledge which can help students
become employable as it is falls short of
empowering the youth for the competitive market
scenario.
• Survey conducted - Dr Nitam Singh, Shubhanker
Yadav, Palash Bairagi – 76% responded - current
academic curriculum is not aligned to industry
requirements
• the quality of training, which has limited industry
linkages and fails to meet the industry standards.
 Industry Institute Partnership
• to tackle the problem of lacking job readiness is partnerships
between the industry and institute
• Many companies are partnering with academic institutions
and universities.
o Infosys has launched a program - Campus Connect - align the education at various
engineering colleges, with the industry requirements .
o Wipro started program- Wipro Academy of Software Excellence, in association with
BITS (Pilani)
• to prepare fresh graduates for careers in software programming
• provide them with the necessary skills.
• Many multinationals established alliances with academic
institutions - specific initiatives
o covering faculty upgradation,
o internships,
o curriculum revision workshops, r
o research incubation, etc. aggregating the architects of the new global economy.
• Tech Mahindra (a joint venture of Mahindra group and British
Telecom), who have found a unique way to address the
manpower shortage and wage inflation problem –
o by getting into the education business itself by setting up an engineering college,
Mahindra College of Engineering, equipping engineers with the skills required in a
'fast changing global scenario'.
 The Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad) –
o curriculum incorporates hands-on experience when teaching students
about computer networks.
o Program offers various curricula, viz, CCNA, CCNP, Network Security,
Fundamentals of Wireless LAN, that’s covers the principles and practice of
designing, building, and maintaining networks capable of supporting
national and global organizations.
o in line with the needs of Indian colleges, and features project-driven
training in high-demand job skills.
o In addition to imparting IT knowledge and networking skills, NetAcad also
aims to bridge the 'digital divide' as it takes technical education to rural
India including technologically backward states like Kashmir, Orissa and
Tripura.
o Cisco has tied up exclusively with all women institutes - encourage girls to
learn about networking
o Also updating its CCNA curricula to accommodate a broader spectrum
of student skill levels and help increase enrollment rates.
o Cisco launched its Entry Level Certification (CCENT - Cisco Certified Entry
Network Technician) - enabling students from technical schools, via,
Polytechnic's & ITI's to equip themselves for growing industry needs.
o Also working on localizing the curricula and certification exams to meet
the growing Indian demand for networking skills (including making IT
Essentials curriculum available in Hindi in the near future).
 The Partnership: A Panacea
• In the bygone era (1990s), there was a rift between
Industry and institute
• Things are better in the 2000s as both understood the
needs and began fulfilling each others needs
• In this decade, industry is helping institutes and vice
versa to develop courses and training methods
respectively to bridge the gap and helping people
create a successful career
• This mutual symbiosis has helped both industry and
institute to grow and prosper
• This develops the demography of a country
• This has also led to the development of skilled workforce
for a country which can be attributed to the industry-
institute partnership and also aided in the mushrooming
of industry oriented institutes
• In the educational field also, new R&D methods have
helped bring success in the industry