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Opinion

Importance of industry- academia collaboration


Published : 24 Mar 2022 08:30 PM | Updated : 24 Mar 2022 08:34 PM

Recently, the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC) has taken an initiative to establish an industry-academic collaboration platform with the goal of improving and expanding industry processes while also generating a qualified and competent workforce. In this ICT era of contemporary technology and the 4th Industrial Revolution, this type of relationship between private firms and academic institutions has always resulted in excellent outcomes for both industries and academia. Establishing such a platform for collaboration is a very timely and well-thought-out initiative indeed.

Last Sunday, on March 20, 2021, our honorable president, Md Abdul Hamid, urged all concerned to build creative people through providing quality education. He said, "ensure that education is not only a certificate-based one in any way and not just memorizing notes. 

We want education to build creative people, free from all sorts of superstition and open-minded personality," while addressing a discussion of the Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh virtually from Bangabhaban.

In the last couple of years, some industry entrepreneurs and some academic institutions have been trying to actively participate in various such initiatives regarding bilateral collaboration for development activities. But these individual initiatives, or silo-type initiatives, are not enough to expand the industrial sectors of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is on the cusp of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), which will bring with it new difficulties such as transforming the production sector, automating old jobs, and increasing prospects for creativity and efficiency. These disruptions in industries and job markets, as well as the total industrial transformation that we must embrace to become a developed country by 2041, have put us in a position where automation will eliminate many occupations, including low-skilled repetitive jobs, and on the other hand, the country will need to quickly identify the skills gap and redesign its higher education system to remain competitive, innovative, and empathetic.

As we know, Bangladesh is a country with a labor force of 63.5 million people and a demographic dividend that provides huge opportunities for rapid economic expansion. Our labor force is growing at a rate of 2.2 percent per year, which means that approximately 2 million new workers are entering the labor force each year. On the contrary, graduate unemployment stands at 38.6%, indicating a skills mismatch. However, graduates are currently having difficulty finding work because our traditional education system lacks skill-orientation in line with industry demand. Our educational institutions lag behind comparable countries in terms of developing market-driven skills, which will be critical in the labor market of the future.

It's an open secret that most of the universities and the existing academic curricula in Bangladesh do not promote industry-oriented critical thinking and instead rely heavily on a memorization style of learning, which promotes apathy. In comparison to our neighboring countries, the lack of adequate research engagement and quality research output is hampered by a corporatized teaching model and limited research grants of public funds—less than 1% of the annual budget in universities.

Unfortunately, Bangladesh was placed 117th in skills and 105th in innovation capacity out of 141 nations in the Global Competitiveness Index 2019. It was also reflected in the Global Innovation Index 2020, which rated Bangladesh 116th out of 131 economies on overall innovation metrics, while India was 48th and our SAARC neighbors, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, were significantly ahead of us.

We also know that in the last few decades, the Bangladesh government has developed necessary policies and taken a lot of initiatives to improve the quality of education and to accommodate all the related stakeholders. Major initiatives are (not limited to) National Education Policy 2010, Strategic Plan for Higher Education 2018–2030 (SPHE 2018–2030), The Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP), Guidelines for Different Programmes Under Special Allocation for Science and Technology, Bangladesh Accreditation Council Act 2017, Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance Project, Bangladesh Research and Education Network (BdREN), and Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP) etc.

In spite of the huge initiatives by the government of Bangladesh, we are actually lagging behind. It’s true, skills gaps are a typical occurrence in all parts of the world. Most governments and universities have launched initiatives to address the changing industrial and economic landscapes. Collaboration between universities and businesses has emerged as a new option for the country to improve its competitiveness in terms of generating qualified human resources and an innovation environment. All the stakeholders, like students, faculties, industry, society, and our country itself, will get the direct benefits of collaboration between universities and businesses.

In addition to the benefits of academia and industry collaboration, there are some bottlenecks to developing effective collaboration. Several reasons, in fact, have hampered efficient collaboration between academia and industry. To begin with, universities around the world have a well-defined, independent, self-contained type of setup that is characterized by teaching and research freedom. The industry, on the other hand, has a rigid hierarchical structure with limited scope for such businesses.

As we know, in the last few decades, developed countries have been practicing academia-industry collaboration. But due to resource constraints, Bangladesh is falling behind. Though Bangladesh's government has taken many initiatives to improve the quality of education, to innovate new products, to contribute to Digital Bangladesh, and to get the direct benefit of the demographic dividend, the government should invest more in Academy-Industry Collaboration. Though it requires specific research and study to develop an accurate model of academy-industry collaboration in Bangladesh considering its cultural context,

In our view, because industries are reluctant to invest in academy-industry collaboration and most universities are memorization-centric, to address all these problems, the Bangladesh government should step forward to establish the linkage. Either UGC may take the lead, or a separate authority/organization may be created to lead the same. Like Malaysia, Bangladesh may consider establishing a university-industry higher education collaboration council (UICC). The University Collaboration Council has the potential to promote communication between higher education, universities, and the private sector. To discover the optimal way for university-industry partnerships, the council brings together high-level representatives from the ministry of higher education, universities, and industry/­employer organizations.

In our country, universities have autonomy and industries are also autonomous, so it is very critical and difficult to activate academy-industry collaboration. Moreover, we have to recognize the fact that the world is changing so fast that a new technology of today becomes an old technology of tomorrow, and Bangladesh is on the verge of economic transition. So, to address the industry-level skills-gap rapidly and equip the upcoming human resource pool with the necessary skills, Bangladesh is required to introduce blended higher academic programs propelled by conventional theoretical teaching and practical industry-experience for a certain period, and we especially urge the establishment of a University-Industry Higher Education Collaboration Council (UICC). If necessary, we have to revisit our existing higher education-related acts and laws, and if necessary, we have to enact a new act to accommodate the same.


Azad Sarkar is, Additional Secretary (Rtd.)