For over 33 years, I have balanced myself between two stools and heard angry remonstrations from both parties. And well, that hasn’t been easy but, I must confess, the arguments on both sides hold a lot of truth. Let me make myself clear. While the academia blames the industry for not hiring candidates, whom they interview for a post, despite them having ‘successfully’ completed the requirements, the industry blames academicians for churning out products with a paper qualification and neither the knowledge nor the personality to survive, let alone thrive, in the industry. This blame game has in fact been getting more bitter, over the years; and it can go on endlessly. Or then, we can choose to do something about it! But, to do so, we need to get to the root of the problem, which I will try to do, in the hope that we can build a bridge with the stones that we have been casting at one another as academicians and industry experts!
So, here are what I see as the five major problems and their solutions
• Students learn what is theory driven and have no clue about how to apply it. Moreover. given varied policies and approaches, passing and acquiring qualifications have been diluted over the years. So, students often have a degree, without really the knowledge and skills that should go with it. To avoid this, both the teaching-learning and evaluation process needs to be made more practical and skill oriented on the one hand and rigorous on the other.
• Education is driven by trends rather than talent. Many enrol for courses and even complete them, without having the necessary aptitude for it. Counselling and aptitude testing should become an integral part of the system, from an early stage, and involve parents, who often push career decisions on children, based on perceptions and desires, rather than a reality check and aptitude.
• Professional courses have lost their meaning, as they are often pursued without the necessary professional exposure, turning them into theory acquisitions rather than talent shaping. Especially for professional courses, either experience should be made mandatory for maximum impact or the course should be designed in a way as to make it more practical than merely ‘internship’ driven. While NEP has made an attempt to address this, it unfortunately still remains largely on paper, for multiple reasons.
• Their qualifications equip students neither with the skill set nor the mindset to take up a job, making the companies reject them or then remove them, soon after hiring. While industries will anyway need to train students on their specific company and organisational requirement, academia needs to ensure basic skills and knowledge – both technical and soft – to make the student industry ready.
• Industry looks down on the academia as theoretical and bookish; the academia looks upon the industry as snooty and high-handed. To overcome this there is a need to build a synergetic relationship, built on strengths and areas of collaboration. Rather than painting all from one group with the same brush, the academicians’ talent in research and teaching can be used in training and projects by the industry, while the academia can use the industry expertise to give practical insights to and mentor their students.
However, till both the academia and the industry drop their ‘sceptical’ lenses and replace them with ‘synergetic’ ones, this gap is not merely going to remain but widen; with the blame game only costing both parties, without resulting in a solution. There can be no winner, if this tug of war continues. The race should be run with the lens of learning from the story of a race being run by disabled children. As the story goes, when one of the disabled children, participating in the race fell, the one who was leading in the race stopped, turned back and helped the fallen child get up. Seeing this all others joined the effort and they all crossed the winning line together. It’s time for the academia and industry to develop that understanding!
Dr Preeti Shirodkar is a freelance Academician, Consultant and Trainer with over 33 years of experience, she has built a strong presence across both academia and industry. She has been associated with reputed institutions such as D G Ruparel College, MET Institute of Management, and Kohinoor Business School, contributing significantly to learning and development. Alongside her academic engagements, she has also trained professionals across leading organizations including RBI, Hansa Cequity, CTRL M, O Source Global, among others, bringing a practical, industry-aligned perspective to her work.
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