Bridging the Industry – Academia Gap

Albert Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at, when we created them.”

Isn’t this true of our education system? While reforms are critical in school education, it is equally important in higher education and vocational training. Undoubtedly such reforms require participation from all – government and private educational institutes, central and state government and more from the corporate world.

The best way to start this process is by creating awareness amongst all stakeholders. Perhaps this could be done by organizing conferences. Such conferences would unfold into wonderful discussions and obviously these same broad and intensive discussions would later become an important tool in identifying a particular development that could perhaps form a strategic inflection point.

This is where HR professionals can play a pivotal role. Haven't we witnessed this in organizations? The more complex, these issues are, the more levels of management are involved, because people from different levels of management bring completely different perspectives and expertise to the table.

Having said that, last week an interesting conference was organized by More than HR Global (MTHR Global) a new generation learning community and was aptly sponsored by Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM India) – a global association committed to research, education and professional development in HR management.

The conference theme was indeed relevant - ‘Nurturing Geniuses – Leading and Managing People in Education and Research Institutes.’ The conference had eminent personalities from academia and industry - speaking on issues confronting our education system, and the dilemma it poses to corporate world. The speakers clearly highlighted that scientific temperament and innovation will be the change agents in developing societies and lead them into the future. But lack of emphasis in higher education, would allow them to decline and therefore priority in education reforms and increased public- private participation becomes a necessity to the whole society.

With the plethora of challenges, a single event might fail to stimulate thinking, garner support, offer solutions and establish industry- academia partnership. It is therefore necessary to continue having more such conferences and involve more people from outside the HR fraternity, who not only have different areas of expertise but also have different interests. Such inclusive conferences will encourage people from other disciplines to give clearly and forcefully; their most considered opinion.

These meets would gradually encourage the stakeholders to cut through the murkiness that surrounds their arguments; clearly understand the issues and each other's point of view. Clearly, all sides cannot prevail in the debate, which arises out of discussions pertaining to HR, skill gaps and archaic educational system but all opinions definitely have value in shaping the right solutions.

Nonetheless MTHR and SHRM deserves to be complimented for taking the first step and bringing the intellectual power of all relevant parties to this sharpening process. After all the clearer images that results out of such meets would permit policy makers, academicians and corporate professionals to make a more informed and more likely correct --- decision and encourage collaboration in designing and implementing reforms.