Role of Business and Industry in Education and Schools

Recently, the business environment and industry are changing rapidly and the result is the emergence of new requirements for the skills and abilities of employees and their professional experience. New professions have emerged, such as social media manager, data analyst, etc. Despite this, today only 34% of companies cooperate with educational institutions in the field of employment, mostly large and medium-sized companies.

According to experts of the company CheapWritingHelp.com which provides cheap essay writing services for students, the main motives for establishing partnerships between business and educational institutions are training specialists who meet the company’s requirements, access to a highly-skilled workforce. Taking this into account, it seems necessary to consider in more detail what role business and industry play in education and schools and what forms of cooperation they usually apply.

Influence of Business and Industry on the Sphere of Education

In recent years, employers have become increasingly interested in educational policy, striving to play an active role in it. Large state-owned companies have been training their own personnel for a long time. Corporate universities are opened. Cooperation agreements are signed with leading educational institutions, providing for the creation of corporate departments, research centers. A special place in this system is occupied by the so-called endowment – trust funds intended for use for non-commercial purposes. As a rule, education, medicine, and culture are financed from these funds, and scholarships are paid.

The private business also needs highly qualified personnel capable of enhancing the innovative potential of a company. In many cases, private enterprises are already initiating the formation of a modern system of continuing education. Business is most interested in well-educated people as an investor. It can make a very significant contribution to the organization of constant renewal and expansion of the horizon of knowledge. Education as the most important institution of human socialization is turning into a production service.

Forms of Cooperation Between Business, Industry and Educational Institutions

We can distinguish the following main forms of interaction between business and industry with educational institutions: conducting fairs, weeks, career days, trainings, seminars, workshops on various aspects of successful employment, organization of excursions to enterprises, organization of internships, creation of career pages, search for offers of partial employment, holding conferences, competitions of business projects, business games, etc.

World experience shows that educational institutions are actively developing cooperation with companies in the field of research and innovation. Thus, according to the study “Business-University Partnership Review in Canada” (2011), companies identify the following most common forms of cooperation with colleges, high schools, universities: internship – 25%, mentoring – 17%, charitable financial assistance – 15%, support for research projects – 14%, contract research projects – 11%, interaction with the research department – 5%, creation of business incubators – 4%.

And the main motives for establishing a partnership are access to competencies and expertise developed at the educational institution – 43%, access to highly qualified specialists – 42%, access to innovative technologies – 22%.

What Slows Down the Process of Developing Partnerships Between Business, Industry, and Education?

A number of barriers hinder effective cooperation between business, industry and education, and schools. According to the representatives of the higher school, the main barriers are the insufficient awareness of business and industry about the possibilities of cooperation with educational institutions and the focus of business only on making a quick profit.

The Opinion of Representatives of Educational Institutions

According to representatives of educational institutions, the main barriers to effective interaction between business, industry, and educational institutions include the following:

• Business and industry are not sufficiently informed about the possibilities of cooperation with educational institutions;
• The business and industry are focused only on making a quick profit;
• The difficulty of harmonizing the legal aspects of intellectual property;
• The business and industry do not have enough financial resources to expand partnerships with educational institutions;
• Problems of information confidentiality;
• Business and industry do not understand the realities and working conditions of educational institutions;
• Lack of specific persons in educational institutions responsible for contacts with business and industry.

These factors, according to business representatives, are more significant barriers to the development of cooperation. They believe that higher education institutions’ misunderstanding of the realities of the business world and the bureaucracy of educational institutions are the biggest obstacles to cooperation.

The Opinion of Business Representatives

According to business representatives, the main barriers to effective interaction between business and educational institutions include the following:

• Educational institutions do not understand the realities of the business world;
• Educational institutions are too bureaucratic structures;
• The difficulty of harmonizing the legal aspects of intellectual property;
• Lack of specific persons in educational institutions responsible for contacts with business and industry;
• Insufficient awareness of opportunities for cooperation with educational institutions;
• Educational institutions do not have their own resources for partnership development;
• Problems of information confidentiality.

A mutually beneficial form of cooperation on the basis of educational institutions can be the organization of laboratories, research centers, basic departments. With such cooperation, the educational institution receives modern equipment, new areas of work with students are developed. In this way, employers get the opportunity to train in accordance with the specifics of the company. Research centers and laboratories allow businesses to select the best students, provide them with a place for internships, and then provide a full-fledged job.

Thus, the role of business and industry in education is extremely important, so the state should create all the conditions for effective cooperation between these spheres.