A while ago, I was invited to speak at a conference session in Delhi conducted by CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) whose theme was Bridging the Gap Between Academics and Industry. Along with me on the panel were some important people in education from prestigious institutions, although I was the sole panelist from a design college. Their stimulating words gave me a lot to think about and my own talk reflected on their valuable insights. It was clear from the comments during and after the panel that many people from academics and industry believe that there is a wide gap between what students in higher education are taught and what the industry expects of them when they graduate, and that there’s an urgent need to narrow that gap significantly, considering India is cascading into a turbulent period of economic and social uncertainty. Admittedly, I truly don’t believe that anyone is 100% sure how exactly to prepare our students for the future when the future itself is so ambiguous.

What did became clear to me were two things: First, that our traditional educational systems are designed for the present situation (and arguably even the past), and that we need to significantly overhaul the entire structure and prepare students for uncertainty by making them more adaptable to new paradigms. Second, I felt that the Academics/Industry Gap is actually more a perception than reality.

To address the first issue, we need to reevaluate existing educational models from top to bottom — in the private, non-profit, and governmental sectors, and in both schooling and higher education. Society seems to demand that traditional paradigms — degrees, fixed curricula, and numerous rules and regulations — lead to academic quality, but that is clearly not the case. Requiring all new higher-ed teachers to have PhD’s, for example, is not necessarily going to improve teaching in the classroom nor produce better graduates. Such teachers may have more domain knowledge, but does that necessarily mean they are better at teaching? I don’t believe so. Look to sports and you can find numerous examples of average players becoming excellent coaches, and vice versa. Society should start to accept that many of our recognized educational models are often outmoded and are designed for a fixed set of outcomes based on known scenarios, whereas the current need is to embrace non-traditional approaches plus different ways to produce and measure quality.

And I don’t automatically think we need to look only to the West for this, by the way. India’s own rich and ancient history has numerous examples of adaptive teaching methods, so as a start we can certainly look within in our own culture for the answers.

As for the second issue, I believe that Industry (although there is hardly such a monolithic thing anymore called ‘capital-I’ Industry) has to reassess their expectations of a graduate and abandon the idea that a fresh graduate must already have a full checklist of skills and knowledge, ready to become a professional the moment they take off their graduation cap and gown. Particularly in the design disciplines education has, for centuries, been followed by years of apprenticeship where the learning continues, and where professionals have taken on the onus of continuing the education of young aspirants. In addition, there is no longer a fixed graduate profile; every employer has different expectations and requirements, so a single fixed curriculum is not going to fulfill all workplace demands. So, if the working environment is rightly considered a natural extension of learning, the ‘gap’ between academics and industry is seen as more perception than reality.

Even so, there are ways to reduce this perceived gap, and I’d like to highlight four strategies that we have been practicing in my own institution:

Industry Accountability

As I’ve said, professional firms and companies of all shapes and sizes need to consider themselves as equal partners in education rather than just ‘recipients’ of skilled and trained professionals. Employers needs to be willing to spend the time and effort to continue the training that begins in college and provide a seamless transition to workplace learning by acting as true mentors to young graduates.

Adaptive Curricula

Academic institutions should move towards designing curricula that produces graduates of diverse profiles rather than assume that all graduates in a discipline fit a fixed outline. Allowing flexibility and student choice in the curriculum via electives and open learning, and not worrying about how much there is to ‘cover’ in a given semester is important. No teacher is able to actually ‘cover’ whatever is needed anyway, so we should give students the freedom to chart their own learning pathways. Institutions should also allow more students and teachers the flexibility to adapt to wider varieties of industry collaborations which don’t necessarily coincide with academic timelines and structures.

Embedding Industry Early and Often

Institutions should rethink the traditional internship model and think of ways to include industry from Day One of a student’s college experience. The involvement of working professionals can start small and get progressively higher so that a student’s skills also grow professionally. Moving from basic industry masterclasses to intensive workshops to live industry projects and consultancies is one way to make this natural progression happen. This mitigates the culture shock of moving directly from classroom to workplace and the ensuing distress that often gets in the way of learning performance.

Value-based Education

Finally, both teachers and employers need to strive towards creating not just better professionals, but better citizens and better human beings. Curriculum and pedagogy on one side and industry practice on the other must both be infused with sensitivity towards ethics, compassion, cooperation, integrity, and honesty. Technical skills will always be important but human skills are absolutely essential towards preparing students for uncertain futures.

Going Forward

The academics/industry gap, whether perceived or real, can be bridged with just a little bit of effort and a whole lot of mindset change. The notion that education’s purpose is solely to serve up a steady supply of workers to fill standardized positions in industry is long gone, but current practices and systems in India don’t seem to reflect this. Acknowledging that our students and graduates are diverse young talents with differing abilities and different learning preferences is an important first step towards creating a more seamless integration between two worlds which actually serve the same purpose.

(This article was previously published on Medium on 22 Aug 2019)