The Connecting Business and Education for a bridge education and industry

One of the initiatives of the National Skills Council is the Education-Business encounters, where the Council brings together education professionals and people from industry to identify ways and means of working closer together.

These Education-Business encounters are intended to create an ambience that allows for the sharing of experiences and expectations leading to networking, brainstorming and concrete ideas that can be developed further in the coming weeks and months.

Together, key stakeholders in different sectors are invited to meet to discuss the main issues that both are facing concurrently, with the aim of creating workable outcomes to address the need for the continued relevance of the study programmes, depending on the needs of the industry.

This week the ministry held two encounters at Aurobindo, one focusing on the digital sector and the other on the pharmaceutical sector.

During the sessions, the way industry and education communicate to achieve outcomes which are necessary for the future of students was explored. Education and industry have sometimes been accused of using different languages; these sessions brought the two together to determine what the needs are and how these can be achieved.

This was done by holding an honest discussion on what is expected from each party, focusing on developing long-term partnerships, providing support to each partner when doing so, and examining the benefits for each party that will result from such collaborations.

The intention behind these encounters is not to share the same language but to bring together these languages to create a common understanding so as to assist both parties.