View of THE ACADEMIA - INDUSTRY INTERFACE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MANAGEMENT SCHOOLS IN INDIA

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ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal (International Journal) ISSN-2456-1037

Vol.04,Special Issue 06, (IC-IREASM-2019) October 2019, Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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THE ACADEMIA - INDUSTRY INTERFACE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MANAGEMENT SCHOOLS IN INDIA

Dr. Shyam Sundar Reddy

Research Scholar, JNTU, Hyderabad, Telangana State Gopu Venkat Swamy

Retd. Professor, Department of Management M.Sudhir Reddy

Associate Professor, JNTU Hyderabad

Abstract – With rapid growth in the global market, India is attracting the attention of many global investors. This scenario has created a need for ready for job. Divergent to this, there is a need for the employees to be trained and upgrade to meet the needs the contemporary environment which is possible only through the active involvement and role of industry in sharing the expertise in academia by developing various programmes and case studies.

According to the survey reports of NASSCCOM, Economic Times Intelligence Group and other industries, it is observed that India has more than 22 million graduates including 1.2 million engineers, 6,00,000 doctorates. Keeping this in view, this paper makes an attempt to highlight the Academia-Industry Interface with Special Reference to the Management Schools in India by turning the management institutes into centers of excellence.

Keywords: Global investors, contemporary environment, expertise, academia, centers of excellence

1 INTRODUCTION

Necessity is the mother of the invention. Over the past decade, world has become global place. In recent years, every individual or business is operating in an atmosphere with innovative skills to compete with global environment.

From the census, it is known that the Higher Education System in India contributes approximately 2.5 millions of graduates from Universities and 3,50,000 engineers per annum to the nation’s workforce, however, it is seen that at any point of time, approximately 5,000,000 graduates are left with unemployment. According to a survey of McKinsey Global Institute, it is depicted that only 25% of the Indian Engineers are employed.

In response the Government has been taking necessary steps by investing in the training and education by assigning a comprehensive share of the National Income to these sectors.

1.1 Pre-requisite to Bridge the Gap

The reason for few jobs in the academia is just not because of fewer programmes, colleges, departments or universities but because of the bulk applicants for the jobs. During the recent years, a vast number of PhDs were awarded for establishment of the higher education and to take them all but the quality has been deteriorated.

Now-a-days, industries are seeking candidates / individuals from the academia for innovative solutions to aid them in their business necessities of effective and quality productivity at lesser expenditures. In this regard, attention should be given towards the management and technical resources, as these are considered to be crucial to the knowledge – based industries.

1.2 Motives behind the Gap between Academia and Industry

1. Since, the mindset of both the industrialists and the academicians are indifferent;

therefore they have different expectations and perceptions.

2. In academia, the curriculum is static by nature whereas the applications are dynamic in industries.

3. Both the industrialists and the academicians have varied goals. In this context, the industrialist strives for the survival whereas the academician strives for the recognition.

4. Phlegmatic (unenthusiastic) attitude of faculty members to surrender themselves for workshops and trainings.

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5. The ideology of industries are short terms with maximum benefits whereas as an academic has a long term perspective.

6. Industry looks for the minimum solution to minimize their risk, here as an academia endeavor for an utmost solution to exploit their recognition.

1.3 Management Education in India

Along with other development countries, India faces the scarcity of intellectuals who are needed for the management and sustaining rapid transformation of the capital markets and the monetary enterprises. Today India has got 950+ B – schools like IIM (Indian Institutes of Management), autonomous private institutes. Over the last two decades, many management schools came into existence, to meet the demand for education in management.

1.4 Employers’ expectation and skills required

Every MBA graduate fantasizes of well-paid job, but little they are aware that excess of job aspirants are rejected at the placement sessions because of communication gap between the potential employee and the employer. Employers now-a-days are looking for candidates with good competencies like problem solving, multi-tasking and decision making. The management institutes should make their students well accustomed to work in the industry oriented during their academic tenure so that they can gain the competency skills.

1.5 Knowledge Generation

The industry–institute interaction is a vital aspect for any institution; as this type of interacting interface decides the scope to what extent the management institutes develops to be an acceptable brand. From this interface the industry can gain expertise and knowledge educated by the management institutes, in turn the management institutes can take the advantage from the industry exposure through seminars, guest lectures and projects.

1.6 Employability skills in Indian Higher Education System

 There is a lack of industry orientation, since the evaluation is still based on examination rather than project based.

 The procedure of re-evaluation of the course/s content becomes inflexible, since all the educational institutions are functional under UGC guidelines and regulations.

 Since, the teachers from the academia has no exposure to industry, there is deficient of attention towards pure science and research.

2 SKILLS ACQUIRED THROUGH REGULAR MBA PROGRAMS

The management institutes in India have adopted the Western Business Education Model of case studies to emphasize the skill building and real – time learning but this approach has somehow failed to achieve its purpose or goals due to deficiency of the Indian cases.

Since the implementation of communication skills (both verbal and written), the students are readily accepted in a wide range at the work places. Keeping in view the current scenario of intensifying Indian economy, the B – schools and the management institutes should encourage the academicians and students for the usage of newly developed technology for innovative services and to develop them to face the challenges with utmost competency and audacity.

2.1 Viewpoints of industry

From the industry point of view, the following changes are to be needed to overcome the gap among the industries and the institutions.

 The dual specialisation program should be permissible for finance and marketing as both of them are interdependent and the decisions pertaining to one has implications on the other.

 Students are required to develop the values such as commitment, passion and integrity and the students should be an essential part of the curriculum.

 Encouragement should be on the holistic and individual development of the students by making them participation in seminars and membership of associations.

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 Bridging the gap between practical and theory through better industry interaction or interface.

 The management institutes needs to upgrade their syllabus and curriculum, to meet the contemporary challenges in the industry.

2.2 Up gradation of Faculty skills

 In present management education system all the faculty have a theoretical / academic orientation. To meet the present industry requirements, they need to go for interaction with the industry periodically and build the “research attitude” in the institute with the establishment of Research and Development (R&D) wing.

 The faculty shouldn’t be selected based on their Degrees, but they should be recruited based on their capability to transmit new methods of learning, quality of exposure towards industry and their passion and contribution for teaching and the students.

 Apart from the theoretical studies in the management institutes, the enforcement of the live case studies with some standardization should be practiced at the commencement of each semester, so has to make the students acquainted with the decision making practices and knowledge sharing.

2.3 Sensitivity of denunciation while functioning for the Government sector

There is a wrong notion in the minds of the students including the society that rejected students look and work for the Government sector. This delusion can be removed only if the gap between the Government, industry and academia is bridged by generating the quality managers and by making the best work done in the government sector. A proper link needs to be created between the industries (which acts as a sponsorer), institutes (provides platform for studies) and the Government (to get the feedback).

3 LATEST TRENDS IN ACADEMIA - INDUSTRY INTERFACE

3.1 Challenges – A Head

In today’s market, there is a neck to neck competition. Over the past two decades, India has produced more than 1.6 million professionals (including both engineers and management professionals) and expecting to produce another 0.8 million professionals in the next two coming years.

In this scenario of demand-supply gap, it has become complicated to create a group of industry oriented human resource. According to the All India Council of Technical

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Education (AICTE) report, the no. of Technical Schools has raised up to three fold in the last decade inclusive of engineering colleges.

The best of the selective universities are producing few graduates and new private institutes / colleges are producing graduates with uneven quality. Further to aggravate the problem, the curricula and the syllabi of the universities and educational institutions is outdated, irrelevant and misfit for the present changing competitive and technological environment.

Therefore, the fresh graduates are not accustomed to work in the practical environment of the industry and companies have to spend extra money and time to train and orient them as per their requirements. Keeping this in view the academia needs to take necessary measures to produce the new brigade of students with competent business ethics, group dynamics, transformational leadership and team building qualities, so that they can become the industry acquainted knowledge workers.

4 CONCLUSION

To survive and to succeed in the highly competitive market, the companies have adopted contemporary methods and strategies to obtain best and unrivaled human resource. Since, the gap between the academia and the industry is getting widen day by day, the Government, Industry and Academia must take necessary steps for some innovative and research methods to bridge the gap. Necessary efforts should be made to ensure that quality is delivered both the ways by bringing the institutions of higher learning and industry together. A regulatory committee or body must be created exclusively for management institutes for monitoring and ensuring of Quality and Assurance in delivering of quality education. Academia-Industry association requires intensification with a force on producing the students to become efficient managers and the leaders of tomorrow.

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