Incentives for private sector can enhance linkages with HE

The crucial role of the private sector in the creation of a demand-driven education system has been acknowledged across the world.

A demand-led system is considered to be helpful to identify knowledge, specific skills and competencies, as well as essential workplace attributes, which should be embedded into the education system.

Among others, the enhanced collaboration with the private sector is strategically important to improve the relevance of training, to help trainees acquire the necessary skills and to lower the likelihood of mismatching qualifications with labour-market demands.

Governments and stakeholders in education systems are aware of the benefits of university-industry linkages for technology transfer, training, enterprise support and development, consultancy, contract and collaborative research, internships for students and externships (when professors are attached to industries).

As a result, they encourage higher education and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions to be actively involved in pursuing these linkages.

However, the success of such a scheme can be enhanced or derailed depending on the mechanisms employed in establishing the linkages between industries and universities.

In a research article I wrote in 2022, I indicated areas of private-sector engagement in Ethiopia which included participation in policy and governance, curriculum development, training and assessment, development of occupational standards, monitoring and evaluation.

In University World News, I also outlined the various challenges that affect successful university-industry linkages including, but not limited to, the lack of incentive provided to the private sector.

A recent proclamation issued by the Ethiopian government, therefore, goes a long way to address this apparent gap.

The state of university-industry linkages

The concept ‘university-industry linkage’ has been widely promoted in Ethiopia since the 1980s, when it started to be practiced by Addis Ababa University’s faculty of engineering.

Its importance continues to be widely acknowledged in national plans, the strategic directions of institutions and evolving demands of the job market.

Among others, Ethiopia’s national development plan, education sector development programmes, higher education and TVET directives, and science and technology policies, underpin the key role of universities and industries in sustaining rapid and broad-based economic growth through improved university-industry linkages.

In this regard, the critical role of Ethiopian higher education and TVET institutions in enabling genuine science, technology and innovation development, developing a structured system with smooth science and technology information flows, technology incubation and technology utilisation is amply recognised.

The scheme requires involving relevant stakeholders such as the private sector in planning, policy-making, training delivery, the transfer of technology, joint research projects, and the monitoring and evaluation of the education and training system.

That is why every institution is expected to forge relations with the private sector: for mutual benefits that could be garnered from participating in these different areas of engagement.

While various efforts have been made to make this plan a reality, there has been little interest and motivation on the part of the private sector in Ethiopia. This is due to the limited recognition given in the system for their efforts and contributions.

In fact, despite its long history, the linkages between industries and universities had serious limitations in terms of introducing legally binding incentive schemes that contribute to the healthy growth of the partnership between the two sectors.

Fortunately, this gap is now addressed through Proclamation No 1298/2023 on Higher Education, Technical and Vocational Training and Research Institutions and Industry Linkage issued at the end of 2023.

Purpose of the new proclamation

The purpose of linkages is identified as follows in the new proclamation: “to ensure effectiveness, mutual benefit, national and international competitiveness by implementing linkage activities with coordination, consistency, accountability, and efficiency in line with the national development agenda”.

The proclamation identifies main actors as leading economic sectors and reporting institutions, public development enterprises, higher education, research, technical and vocational training institutions; private manufacturing and service-providing organisations, federal and regional chambers of commerce, sectorial associations, non-governmental organisations, as well as professional and civic associations.

A linkage council is to be established from these stakeholders to oversee linkage activities and coordinate national efforts.

This includes setting strategic directions, monitoring and evaluating processes and performance in accordance with priority areas of the government; identifying shared and individual linkage affairs; indicating directions on issues that need further improvement; compiling and sharing best practices from the linkage actors; inviting stakeholders and individuals to share their knowledge and experience, as well as assistance and advice on effective implementation of linkage activities.

Incentive schemes proposed

The proclamation recognises private industries, private higher education institutions and individual researchers or inventors as key actors who need to be incentivised for their roles in university- industry linkages.

The proclamation does not offer details, but promises to offer special recognition awards and other relevant incentives to private industries that participate in the linkage.

The [Ethiopian] Ministry of Education, which has been instrumental in initiating the scheme, further pledges to submit proposals to the Ministry of Finance to introduce a system that would enable private industries to partially or fully recover their linkage costs.

In line with this, the proclamation entrusts the ministry with the responsibility of establishing the linkage funding system and mobilising resources that can strengthen linkage activities among actors, and follow its proper implementation with the council.

However, the proclamation is not clear what the rights and privileges of the private sector are in terms of ascertaining the benefits they will get.

The proclamation promises to extend similar benefits to private higher learning institutions for participating in linkages, including assistance provided in the form of capacity-building training to institutional managers and instructors.

It provides for assistance to private institutions to conduct applied research on national research priority areas, but the details of the assistance and who will provide the support are not spelled out.

The proclamation also promises incentives to students, trainees or industries in the form of compensation for damage/s incurred during internship periods, but with very little details in terms of who provides the incentive and how the incentives will be determined.

In a similar vein, individual researchers or inventors mobilising funds from external sources for the purpose of enhancing the linkage shall be incentivised based on directives that still have to be set.

Beyond the proclamation

The proclamation provides the long-awaited legal framework for further enhancing the participation of key stakeholders in university-industry linkages. By doing so, it offers several advantages to participants, which previously was a barrier that discouraged stakeholders from actively participating in the scheme.

However, the lack of details in the proclamation, including the unfinished business of outlining how the recognition of the private sector will take place, appears to be worrying because of the implementation gap this can easily create.

The apparent lack of details in the proclamation is expected to be resolved through the further development of relevant directives which should be prepared by the ministry of education and endorsed by the linkage council.

It is not clear how much progress the ministry has already made in this regard, but the process needs to pick up the pace if the benefits of the current proclamation are to be harnessed in a meaningful way.

On a related note, while the importance of the new proclamation in facilitating university-industry linkages is clear, it needs to be supplemented by other collaborative and well-coordinated efforts, such as the strategic management of linkages, if current weaknesses in the area are to be addressed in a comprehensive manner.

Wondwosen Tamrat (PhD) is an associate professor and founding president of St Mary’s University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a collaborating scholar of the Programme for Research on Private Higher Education at the State University of New York at Albany, United States, and coordinator of the private higher education sub-cluster of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa. He may be reached at preswond@smuc.edu.et or wondwosen@gmail.com. This is a commentary.