Time for Industry and Academia to Read from the Same Playbook

Bangladesh has spoken for many years about the importance of industry-academia collaboration. The phrase appears regularly in seminars, workshops, policy discussions, and university strategy documents. Yet in practice, the relationship between universities and the world of work remains thin, fragmented, and largely dependent on individual initiative.

This is a serious national concern. Bangladesh now produces a large number of university graduates every year, but the transition from university to employment remains difficult. Unemployment among graduates is consistently high, and it is especially painful for fresh graduates seeking their first jobs.

Employers in banking, business, NGOs, development agencies, media, technology, and even public-sector-linked organizations often say that they struggle to find graduates with the right mix of communication skills, work attitude, initiative, problem-solving ability, independence, and professional maturity.

As someone who has spent decades moving between academia and the corporate world -- as a faculty member at IBA, Vice-Chancellor at ULAB, merchant banker, corporate recruitment consultant  -- I have heard this complaint too often to dismiss it as employer prejudice. There is a real gap between what universities teach, how students learn, and what employers increasingly need.

To reduce this gap, we need to move beyond ceremonial collaboration. Inviting a few guest speakers, sending students for routine internships, or signing occasional MoUs is not enough. Four areas require urgent attention.

Curriculum as Engine of Learning

The first and most important area is curriculum. In Bangladesh, educators often confuse curriculum with syllabus or course outlines. A syllabus lists topics. A course outline describes readings, assignments, and assessments.

Curriculum is much more fundamental. It is the engine of learning. It defines what students should become capable of doing, how they will learn, how they will be assessed, and how courses together build knowledge, skills, values, and professional readiness.

Unfortunately, university curricula in Bangladesh are updated slowly, if at all, and mechanically. Many remain disconnected from social change, technological change, employment trends, and the future of work. Too many programmes emphasize content coverage rather than capability development. Students pass examinations, but do not necessarily learn how to communicate, analyse, solve problems, work independently, collaborate, think critically, or continue learning after graduation.

Industry has historically had no role in the design of curriculum or teaching-learning methods. Employers are expected to hire graduates, but are rarely invited to help universities understand what kinds of graduates are needed. This must change.

A useful example comes from the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, a relatively young private university founded in 2004. One of its early departments was Media Studies and Journalism. In 2009, we supported an ambitious plan by a newly appointed foreign department head to redesign the program almost from the ground up.

At that time, ULAB did not have a strong market reputation. Admissions were modest. The leading program in the field was understandably Dhaka University’s Department of Mass Communication and Journalism. We therefore had to think differently.

The department head began not by sitting alone with textbooks, but by identifying major current and potential employers of media and journalism graduates. Senior executives from media, advertising, journalism, and related sectors were invited to a brainstorming meeting. The question was simple: What kind of fresh graduates do you need?

The discussion covered soft skills, hard skills, writing ability, production skills, professional attitude, teamwork, ethical judgement, adaptability, and understanding of society. The department then studied the profiles of graduates entering the workforce, curricula of mass communication departments in other universities, including Dhaka University, and reviewed curricula of reputed international universities. A draft curriculum was prepared, internally and externally vetted, and then finalized.

The result was not merely a new list of courses. It was a redesigned learning ecosystem.

The curriculum embedded work-integrated learning and opportunities for students to acquire skills and cognitive abilities valued by employers. Its special features included a “curriculum integration” project each term, where students in different courses worked on group projects around a common academic theme -- such as honesty, sustainability, freedom of expression, or civic responsibility.

External experts on the chosen theme were invited to explain the relevance of the theme to students’ course work. At the end of the term, students were not only graded on the project, but the project output -- photographs, videos, campaign posters, physical and digital art, sculpture, masks, etc. --  were exhibited at a public art gallery. Many learning outcome boxes were ticked.

The department also set up a digital media lab, mini-TV studio, campus radio, a student newspaper, and an apprenticeship program in film studies, to give students an opportunity of hands-on learning. While students of other universities were learning video-making from PowerPoint slides, ULAB students got their hands on digital cameras and mixing panels.

The outcome was striking. Student interest increased. Admissions rose. Employers began to recognize the practical capability of students. Some students received employment offers in their third or fourth year. Today, ULAB’s Media Studies and Journalism department is one of the largest in the country, and its graduates are visible across media, advertising, digital platforms, production houses, and journalism.

The lesson is clear: When curriculum is designed with academic seriousness and industry insight, it can transform both student learning and institutional reputation.

Meaningful Workplace Exposure 

The second area is student exposure to the workplace.

Internships are currently the most common form of industry-academia collaboration in Bangladesh, especially in business education, and to some extent in engineering, computer science, media, and development studies. IBA pioneered structured internships through its MBA program in the 1970s, and many universities later adopted the model.

But over time, internships have often become more ritual than learning experience. A student is attached to an organization for two or three months. The organization often uses the student for routine administrative work. The student’s university supervisor has little interaction with the host organization. The internship report is descriptive and lacking in analytical rigour. There are no clear learning outcomes, no structured mentoring, and no meaningful project.

This is a lost opportunity.

Internships should become supervised workplace learning. Each placement should have clear objectives, defined tasks, an organizational mentor, an academic supervisor, and a meaningful problem or project.

Students should not merely observe the workplace; they should learn how organizations function, how decisions are made, how problems are framed, and how professional expectations differ from classroom expectations. On the other side, the internship organisation can benefit by assigning meaningful research projects to the interns.

During my years at IBA, I once supervised an MBA student who interned at the Square Group. He was tasked with a comparative feasibility study of a hotel versus a hospital on Dhaka’s Elephant Road. I’d like to think that his work played an important role in the establishment of Square Hospital.

Universities can choose from a portfolio of options. They can introduce short field immersions, live case projects, mini-consulting assignments, apprenticeship or co-op models, practitioner-led studios, and capstone projects developed jointly with employers. These models are especially useful in disciplines where long internships are difficult to arrange.

The purpose is not to turn universities into training centres for companies. The purpose is to help students connect knowledge with reality.

Research Funding and Collaboration

The third area is research.

Most university research in Bangladesh remains individualistic. Faculty members often choose topics based on personal interest, publication convenience, or promotion requirements. Many research papers have limited relevance to industry, public policy, or national development needs. Citations are low and the papers gather dust on the faculty’s shelf.

Department-based research cultures are rare. Long-term thematic research clusters are weak. Industry-funded research is negligible. Professorial chairs funded by industry are almost unknown. Universities or departments rarely develop strong reputations in specific applied research areas. At the same time, research funding remains severely limited.

The University Grants Commission provides some grants, but the amounts are miniscule, and there are continuing concerns about proposal quality, selection processes, and research impact.

Industry also has to accept responsibility. Employers cannot simply complain that universities are irrelevant while investing almost nothing in university research.

In many countries, universities and industry work together through sponsored laboratories, endowed professorial chairs, collaborative research centres, policy labs, doctoral sponsorships, and consulting projects. Bangladesh needs its own version of this model.

But such collaboration will not happen automatically. It requires institutional strategy, research management capacity, transparent partnership rules, and trust between academia and external stakeholders.

Bringing Practitioners into Teaching

The fourth area is the engagement of practitioners in teaching and learning.

Industry professionals are sometimes invited to universities as guest speakers or part-time lecturers, especially in business schools. But such engagement remains informal and ad hoc. We rarely institutionalize adjunct faculty, professors of practice, executives-in-residence, practitioner-led workshops, or jointly taught courses.

This is unfortunate. Students benefit greatly from exposure to professionals who can explain how theory appears in practice, how organizations actually work, how careers develop, and what employers value. At the same time, practitioners benefit from engaging with academic ideas and young talent.

Universities should create clear policies for engaging practitioners without compromising academic standards. Not every successful executive can teach. But many can contribute through selected modules, studios, case discussions, mentoring, simulations, project supervision, and career guidance.

Such engagement should complement academic teaching, not replace it.

From Rhetoric to Systems

The way forward is not complicated, but it requires seriousness.

Every faculty, institute, and department should establish an Industry Advisory Board made up of representatives of employers, alumni, entrepreneurs, NGO leaders, public-sector professionals, and practitioners relevant to the discipline. These boards should not be decorative. They should review curricula, comment on graduate capabilities, identify emerging fields, support internships and projects, and advise on research opportunities.

Universities must embed employability skills across all disciplines. Communication, teamwork, independent thinking, ethical judgement, digital literacy, problem-solving, and lifelong learning should not be treated as optional extras. They should be built into course design, assessment, project work, and student advising.

Internships and workplace exposure should be redesigned as structured learning experiences. Universities should mobilize their alumni networks more strategically, to support mentoring, placements, curriculum review, research funding, visiting teachers, and institutional advocacy.

The UGC should also create incentives for genuine university-industry collaboration. Competitive grants could require joint proposals. Program reviews could include employer feedback. Research funding could prioritize partnerships addressing national development challenges. The NBR can consider tax breaks for companies that provide research funding or endowments in general.

Finally, industry must change its attitude. Universities are not merely suppliers of labour. They are knowledge institutions. If industry wants better graduates, better research, and more relevant education, it must invest time, money, expertise, and trust.

Industry-academia collaboration is not just about jobs. It is about national competitiveness. It is about innovation. It is about preparing young people for a world where knowledge becomes obsolete quickly, but the capacity to learn, adapt, and think remains invaluable.

Imran Rahman is Professor of Finance and a former Vice-Chancellor at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh.