HYDERABAD: In a move to encourage industry-academic collaboration in higher educational institutions, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked all the universities and their affiliated colleges to set up University-Industry Inter-Linkage Centres (UILCs).
The UGC has made it clear that every educational institution must ensure interaction with industry to provide its students practical experience in their field. The UGC’s guidelines instruct the institutes to set up industry-academic clusters, establish an exclusive cell to handle industry collaboration, introduce skill development courses and launch start-up and innovation policies among several measures.
The significance of university-industry interaction has become an important agenda of higher education on policymaking front at both national and institutional levels. There are many areas of collaboration between universities and industries which are mutually beneficial, the UGC has said.
The UGC, in a letter to the vice- chancellors of universities, has said, “Considering the importance of this issue, the UGC has framed guidelines for establishment of UILCs. Kindly ensure compliance of these guidelines by all the departments of your university as well as affiliated colleges.”
When it comes to the state universities in Telangana, most of them still lack industrial collaboration even for technical courses. This is resulting in limited research activities in higher education and placements. This is also leading to a large gap between the requirement of industry and the young graduates’ skills.
A senior member of a faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad, says, “Despite having a good academic record, engineering graduates often find it difficult to get jobs because they lack practical experience in their field. We can fill this gap by encouraging students to take up internships in industry during their study. Internships will be easily accessible only with direct collaboration with industries.”
Central universities like UoH are already making industry-academic collaboration and has around `200 crore worth of research projects from various industries.