Teach Middle East Magazine Jan - Mar 2020 Issue 2 Volume 7 | Page 14

Sharing Good Practice
BRIDGING THE DIVIDE BETWEEN
ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE
CORPORATE SECTOR IN THE DIGITAL AGE
BY: MURAD SALMAN MIRZA
‘ D
idn’t they teach you this in
college? ’
An anguished
cry, laced with frustration
rings out in the corridors
of a corporate organisation from
a jaded manager eyeing a recent
inductee from a well known academic
institution. Sounds familiar? Sadly, this
act is played with minor variations in
a number of organisations striving to
bridge the gap between the Academic
institutions and the Corporate sector.
The mantra of ‘Right Person for the
Right Job’, degraded to the level of
a cliché, has long been etched into
the programmable mindsets of HR
professionals to ensure optimization
in talent induction. However, such
slogans are often tempered with the
sobering reality that ‘all that glitters on
a resume is not gold’, especially when
fresh talent is being sought from the
academic institutions.
What creates such a divide? This
article
explores
the
respective
question by highlighting some of the
existing gaps between the Academic
institutions and the Corporate sector,
14
Term 2 Jan - Mar 2020
while providing viable solutions in the
respective context to remain relevant
and competitive in the Digital Age.
THE DILEMMA
First, the education imparted in
academic institutions is limited by
the curriculum, which is generally the
product of; what the academicians are
comfortable with teaching, availability
of relevant research in the respective
area and the enrolment levels of the
various courses. Such confines infringe
upon the freedom required by the
demands of a dynamic market that
is increasingly gravitating to hybrid
learning as a more conducive option
for enhancing skills, rather than
relying on the conventional pedagogic
nature of classroom teaching. The
subsequent skill deficit aggravates the
desperation felt by employers in terms
of finding desired talent nurtured on
the latest practical knowledge. For
example, how to market products
effectively to consumers enticed by
the convenience of online purchases
while they are being inundated with a
plethora of options.
Class Time
Second, the academic courses are
generally taught by academicians
who are driven by research and guard
their bastion of knowledge zealously
from the practitioners who are
normally chastised as the unregulated
exploiters of knowledge. Thus, igniting
the unending debate on ‘knowledge
for knowledge’ vs ‘knowledge for
profit’.
Such divergent thinking
generally permeates the educational
institutions and results in curriculums
that have limited application in the
practical world, e.g., math courses,
for non-math majors, focusing on
deriving differential equations, rather
than teaching how to use math in
doing statistical analysis by using real-
life case studies to develop the skills
needed for becoming data scientists
who are critically needed in the
Digital Age. Consequently, employers
are invariably dependent upon the
quality of their orientation, on-the-
job training or specialized external
courses, to increase the likelihood of
grooming desired talent to their level
of satisfaction.
Third, the pedestal of academic
achievement is based upon the
quality and extent of research that
takes years to complete and can
suffer from the misfortune of being
inadequate in scope, outdated or
soured with biasness. Such a temporal
distortion often manifests in terms
of obsolete solutions to problems
that have already been resolved in
the professional circles.
Therefore,
the fresh talent emerging from
educational institutions is normally
tainted with yesterday’s knowledge.
For example, management theories
that are increasingly irrelevant in the
Digital Age, driven by disruption, where
the average lifespan of an organization
had decreased to less than 20 years as
compared to the 1950s when it was
around 60 years (https://www.cnbc.
com/2017/08/24/technology-killing-
off-corporations-average-lifespan-of-