Industrial Advancements and emerging need for Collaboration between Industry and Engineering Universities of Pakistan

Abstract

Industry academia collaboration plays paramount role for both stakeholders and there are numerous benefits of that collaboration. This study aims to determine the role of this collaboration and its potential advantages for both the parties. The respondents for this study were 40 working engineers from two engineering organizations of Pakistan. Purposive sampling method was used to draw the participants. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 15.0) to draw percentages for each variable such as gap between technical and non technical skills at workplace and communication skills in engineering curriculum that assists engineering graduates to perform workplace jobs efficiently following graduation at workplace. The results of the study suggest that there is a gap between technical and non technical skills at workplace and the subject of English or communication skills taught to engineering students does not significantly improve communication skills of engineering students. The findings of the study can be used as a guideline to overcome prevailing technical and non technical skills gap at workplace and to add more communication skill subjects in engineering curriculum in order to better train future engineers for the workplace which has become more demanding in terms of skills of engineers compared to past decade engineers.

Keywords: Collaboration, Industry, Engineering Universities