Higher education responsiveness through partnerships with industry: The case of a university of technology programme

Abstract

In the context of mid-level skills shortages and the promotion of industry-education partnerships, this article examines the case of a longstanding partnership between the pulp and paper industry and a university of technology. The partnership resulted in the development of a focused qualification. We explore the experiences and understandings of academics and students in order to examine the benefits and pitfalls of such partnerships in addressing the needs of business, higher education and the students. The results show that while the university of technology has benefitted through work placements for their students and funding for industry-seconded lecturers, the partnership's links are weakening. The programme is unattractive to high-achieving 'matric' graduates and is taken as a stepping-stone to other engineering fields. The article explores why this has developed. The curriculation of qualifications that are narrowly focused on one industry may limit articulation and portability of skills between different industries by graduates.

Business students and work-life: mind the gaps!

“…Another challenge is to find the right host-firm to involve in WIL, secure placement and reduce the student entry barriers. Alpert et al (2009); Lee et al (2010); Xia et al (2015); Wedekind and Mutereko (2016); Taylor and Govender (2017) and all address these set of challenges.…”

“…While the WIL students are included in the programme and trying to accomplish the tasks within the host-firm, a new set of challenges prevails, such as, legal risks associated with student placements, health and safety issues and handling host-firm confidentiality. These were empirically addressed by Alpert et al (2009); Simola (2009); Pavlin (2016); Wedekind and Mutereko (2016); Cameron (2017); Taylor and Govender (2017) and Cameron et al (2018). Important practicalities such as student logistics and projects management have to be solved as highlighted by Lee et al (2010).…”

The cultural web, higher education and work-based learning

“…Major (2016) claims that academics acquire industry knowledge and exposure to real-life business problems when participating in WBL partnerships, and this knowledge can then be passed on to traditional full-time learners. Engaging in WBL programmes can broaden the contact base with industry partners, thus stimulating future opportunities for research and innovative collaborations (Wedekind and Mutereko, 2016). In WBL programmes, the majority of the learning occurs in the workplace.…”

Academic and Industry Collaboration – A Literature Review

“…Desha et al [28] assert that there is a "time lag dilemma," wherein the standard process of assimilating new regulations and guidelines into the educational process takes far too long for the resulting curriculum to be effective. Certain partnerships between industry and academia have also caused the development of narrowly-focused qualifications concentrated only on one engineering field, which limits the ability of students to transfer skills between different industries and makes such programs unattractive to higher-achieving graduates, despite the increased availability of work placements and funding for lecturers for the university [29], although there are solutions available for some of these issues. Desha et al [28], for instance, describe a "rapid curriculum renewal" approach to assist educators in addressing their risk exposure to likely shifts in industry), not all of them are so easy to resolve.…”