THE gulf between industry and academia is not a new phenomenon by any means. To be frank, it is a yawning gap that separates what industry needs from what the universities offer.
It is also an undeniable fact that the issue affects almost all societies regardless of being either part of the developed world or that of the developing.
There is a lot of effort going on in a number of countries to bridge this troublesome gap by somehow improving comprehensive collaboration between academic programmes and industry. From the United States and Europe in the West to China and India in the East, a number of such initiatives have been taken, and are still being considered, both in public and private sectors to facilitate smooth flow of academic intelligence towards practical application.
That being so, is there a need to worry too much about the prevailing gap between the two important units of national activity? The answer quite simply is in the affirmative because the parameters between the situation in Pakistan and the rest of the world are radically different. Having first detected the problem many, many years ago, the world today is concerned about raising financial resources at the university level to improve research, about protecting new ideas, and about understanding in exact terms what the industry needs.
In contrast, at our end, the gap between industry and academia is suggestive of the need to improve the standard of teaching methodology and devising a curriculum that may help the students to be in a position to serve the industry when they finally join the job market. In a nutshell, we are today where the world was, say, a couple of decades ago.
A look at the country’s business schools, posh, plush and fashionable as they are, is enough to make one realise the gravity of the problem, and, indeed, the gap between what is being done by the schools, and what can so easily be done by them keeping in view the resource pile of which they are sitting pretty.
One of the major complaints by the industry, as voiced by a number of senior Human Resource professionals, is that the business schools are still making do with dated syllabus and old-fashioned teaching methodology which, generally speaking, fails to prepare the graduates to meet real-life challenges in the initial phase of their corporate life. Like the doctors who have to do a one-year house job at the end of their academic studies, the graduates coming out of a lot of business schools are also treated by the industry as interns.
“Not all business graduates are worth their salt,” says Feroz Alam, who is the Human Resource Director at Barrett Hodgson Pakistan. Having interviewed a whole lot of MBAs as part of his professional assignment, Mr Alam has come to rely on a handful of schools to pick his candidates from.
IBA, Hamdard, CBM and Zsabist, he says, are his preferred choice, with the Lahore-based LUMS ranking even higher. “A LUMS graduate,” he says, “is as good as those coming from foreign institutions of much repute and fame”.
As can be expected, not everyone in the industry agrees with the opinion. Mehreen Ansari, Manager Faculty Recruitment and International HR at the Aga Khan University Hospital, for instance, raises an interesting point. “LUMS, no doubt, is the top ranking business institution in the country, but it is a common observation in the job market that its graduates come with a certain attitude. I know of institutions that don’t like that kind of attitude. This actually means that as a package deal, the LUMS graduate is not welcomed everywhere.”
Another point raised by Ms Ansari relates to the rather lopsided distribution of fresh MBAs in the job market, with a majority going either for financial institutions or for FMCGs. The curriculum, she says, does not prepare or expose the graduates to alternative sectors, like, for instance, health. “Even today when HR is the buzz word, several business schools do not have a full-time HR programme in the list of final year specialisation options,” she points out.
Another area of concern in the industry is about the lack of overall perception among the local business graduates when compared with those coming from abroad. The argument is that business schools limit themselves to imparting professional education without bothering to make their students more aware about the human beings and the world at large. If you don’t understand the human mind and the various currents influencing it, you are bound to suffer on the job, and this, according to the industry, is exactly what is happening with fresh business graduates.
Anwar Alam, of Szabist, and Professor Inayat Din, of the IBA, both tend to differ on this count. In fact, they reject almost every concern voiced by the industry, which in itself is a reflection of the prevailing state of affairs between the two components.
Mr Alam points out a few specific courses that have been designed keeping in view several aspects of personality management and human psychology as well as the elements of internship and lectures by guest faculty that, in his view, are bridging the gap. He, in fact, launches a counterattack, saying those practising in the industry are “themselves not good enough” and that is why they are “passing on the blame.”
Prof. Din finds fault not with business graduates, but with social attitudes. “This business of ‘A’ level studies has given rise to the perception that speaking fluent English is the key to success, and that is what most business schools are doing, simply churning out people who can speak English, but don’t really know the real stuff.”
When his attention is drawn towards IBA-specific complaints by the industry, which finds the standards going down drastically in an institute which not long ago used to be on the top of the ladder, Prof Din modifies his argument, but only just. “The young faculty members also suffer from the same English-speaking attitude. After all, they are part of the social setup,” he argues. Indeed, they are, but the social setup does not get paid to impart proper education; the faculty does!
A rough estimate of the kind of funds available with the schools makes one wonder why they can’t come up to the expectations of the industry, which would be a win-win situation for all. On an average, there are about a thousand students – covering all semesters and all classes – on any campus at any given time, and the schools charge, again on an average, Rs50,000. This means a gross income of Rs50 million per semester, and Rs100 million per year. Both the figures – students as well as the fee – are on the conservative side and do not include summer semesters and certificates course wherever applicable. With that kind of funds, anything is possible provided one is willing to go about it.
THE gulf between industry and academia is not a new phenomenon by any means. To be frank, it is a yawning gap that separates what industry needs from what the universities offer.
