LAHORE:Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Chairman Prof. Dr. Shahid Munir on Monday stressed the need for putting in place effective measures to fill industry-academia linkage gap.
In a meeting with Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Kashif Anwar, Senior Vice President Chaudhry Zafar Mahmood and Vice President Adnan Khalid Butt here at LCCI, he added that budget for education and the research work was very low and needed to be enhanced.
Dr. Shahid Munir said that most of the grants to the universities went towards salaries and no sufficient funds remained available for the research work. He admitted that there was a gap of industry-academia linkage which needed to be filled. He added that a curriculum should be designed to bridge this gap.
He said that there should be a syllabus which was as per the requirement of the industry and the industrialists should be given representation in the boards of universities so that they could play their role to bring industry and academia closer.
The Chairman Punjab Higher Education Commission also invited the LCCI President Kashif Anwar to attend All Punjab Universities Innovation Expo 2022.
LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that the industry-academia linkages in Pakistan were still very weak as compared to the other countries. Instead of applied research, the universities were still focusing just on basic research. He said that lack of research was the basic problem which was one of the major hurdles in economic growth.
“We have to understand the research is a win-win model for both the industry and academia,” the LCCI President said, adding that the universities should focus more on applied research that would automatically benefit the industry.
He said that the trust deficit was also a factor due to which the industry did not have confidence in researchers and on the other hand, researchers did not have the confidence that the industry would pay properly for their research work.
The LCCI President said that there was a dire need to make interaction between industry and academia stronger. He said that Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry had established a relevant committee and was trying to include same number of members from industry and academia. This committee should be given the task to take Federal Higher Education Commission, Punjab Higher Education Commission and other funding agencies on board and arrange interactive sessions on sustainable basis.
He said that not much research work could be done due to less funding to the universities. It was necessary that the Punjab Higher Education Commission should allocate more funds for the universities so that the scope of research work could also be increased, he added.