INSTITUTION-INDUSTRY COLLABORATION IN BUSINESS EDUCATION: PROSPECTS, CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES

Abstract

Contemporary business and industrial sectors are daily bombarded with emerging trends and challenges that make it imperative for business educators to be proactive in order to remain relevant. One of the platforms for achieving continued relevance is institution-industry collaboration in business education. Therefore, this paper x-rayed the prospects, challenges and strategies for promoting result oriented collaboration between institutions offering business education and relevant industries. The paper explained that the current curricular of business education in colleges of education and universities cannot be effectively implemented in isolation of the professional skills and expertise of top-notch stakeholders in the industrial sector. The paper identified poor supervision, communication gap, students’ poor attitude and hostile economic environment as some of the challenges impeding effective institution-industry collaboration. Strategies for boosting collaboration between institutions and industries include mentorship, training and retraining of business education students and lecturers, excursions to production factories, joint exhibitions, collaborative research and organizing distinguished lecture series. The paper suggested among others that Business Education Department in every tertiary institution should establish liaison units for institution-industry collaboration in order to bridge the gap between academic institutions and professional industries. It was equally suggested that institutions and industries should synergise in regular review of business education curricular in order for business education graduates to be able to cope with the demands of the 21st century in the world of work.

Keywords: Collaborative research, SIWES, Fieldtrips, Skill acquisition and Synergy.