Academia–Industry Partnerships That Ensure Curriculum Relevance

When a line manager looks at a shop floor full of new hires and sees eight weeks of training, shadowing, safety refreshers and fundamental toolchains ahead, they come to an uncomfortable conclusion: we are paying twice, once for the degree and again for the skills that make someone effective.

A student who got the highest score on every written test in town freezes when the test transforms into a live production task. Both sides are frustrated because industry and academia depend on each other but act like strangers.

This is not a game of blame. It is a mismatch of incentives, timelines, and terminology. Companies plan their work in quarters and product cycles, while colleges plan theirs in academic years and accreditation periods. Employers care about throughput, safety, and yield; schools care about outcomes, credits, and rubrics. The cost is seen in long ramp-up times, mentors who are too busy, delayed modernisation, and the subtle cynicism of induction programmes that teach what degrees should have taught.

Universities invest in outdated labs and placement drives, while students hedge their bets with bootcamps and micro-credentials. When the signal for ‘real skill’ moves outside the degree, higher education has to ask itself a big question.

A Better Way Forward

There is a better way to do things. It starts by going back from the job and sharing ownership from start to finish. Find out what jobs will be most important in each field during the next five to ten years. Break them down into important tasks. Link those tasks to skills and credits. Co-design assessments that resemble actual work. Deliver learning in three layers:

1. Labs on campus that look like real tools, safety, and SOPs.

2. High-fidelity simulations for safe practice on a large scale.

3. Full-semester, in-industry blocks where learners are tested on the job, learning throughput, quality, safety, teamwork, documentation, and technical abilities gained.

Every six months, go over the results together and make changes to the content, labs, and standards.

That is not an internship stuck to the end of a syllabus. It is a curriculum created from job descriptions backwards and owned by both Industry and Academia throughout.

Given India’s context, this paradigm is not only desirable but necessary.

Lessons from the World and Policy Direction

Germany’s Dual Model (Duales System) already shows how it can work: students split time between classrooms and paid training at enterprises, where industry sets standards and evaluates competency. The result is faster time-to-productivity, lower youth unemployment, and a culture where practice and theory reinforce each other.

Policy has already shown the way through NEP 2020 and the National Credit Framework (NCrF), which link skill-based learning with transferable credits. Occupational standards set by sector bodies can be included in training modules, and UGC now allows experienced professionals to teach through the Professors of Practice programme. In simple terms: agree on the criteria, link them to credits, set a schedule for real work, and let professionals teach alongside academics. India already has the framework for its own Dual Model; all it needs is the will to carry it out.

India’s Dual Model: Three Promises

India’s Dual Model must be designed for India, built on three promises.

First, occupational competencies built into subjects.

Start with the demand for workers in EV manufacturing, green buildings, logistics and cold-chain, healthcare operations, semiconductors, cloud and cybersecurity, hospitality, and high-value services. Employers and universities should co-develop the “golden thread” for each: tasks → competences → assessments → credits → qualification advancement. Learners’ credits must follow them through the national Academic Bank of Credits so that mobility is seamless.

Second, earning while learning.

Degrees that include apprenticeships, flexible shift-based schedules, and simulations to absorb capacity shocks are not add-ons; they are the model. MSME clusters, PSUs, and Tier-2/3 industrial belts are not supporting acts; they are the main stage. If sequenced correctly, a student should never have to choose between the classroom and the shop floor; they should be two halves of the same whole.

Third, shared governance

A joint body of industry, academia, and the Board of Studies must set standards, plan multi-week on-the-learning blocks, and approve annual content revisions. Without it, “partnership” becomes MoUs, guest lectures, and summer internships. Useful, yes, but not transformative.

Concerns about capacity or quality can be solved through simulation, modular intakes, and joint assessments. None of this asks industry to become a college or universities to become factories; it simply asks both to co-own a system that puts results first.

The Opportunity and the Ask

India is no longer a credentials economy; we are now a skills and innovation economy where roles and tools evolve constantly. The prize is large: more productive workers for companies, higher wages for learners, more globally competitive industries, and renewed credibility for our universities. The risk of inaction is greater: degrees that lose meaning, companies that pay double, and a generation that learns to pass tests instead of solving problems.

As the Founder-Chancellor of a Skills University, I have a simple request for businesses: please join us at the Board of Studies table to help develop the curriculum, not just the placement desk. Bring your mentors, standards, SOPs, and toolchains. We will bring teaching methods, customisable programme and credit systems, and quality control. Together, we can build programmes where the test is a production task, the lab mirrors your workflow, and the academic credits earned on your site are as valuable as those on campus. We will review results jointly and update content collectively. Relevance will be treated as a design constraint, not an afterthought.

Regulators are ready, businesses are willing, and students are eager; the gap is execution, which the Dual Model fills.

The invitation is open. If you are an employer, let us co-create a Dual Model pathway in your occupation. If you are a policymaker, please help streamline credit transfer. If you are a student, demand training and assessments that mirror your future career. When meaningful things move up, wasteful things move down. Everyone wins, and India gains the workforce it needs.

(views expressed are personal)

Mr. Pravesh Dudani, Founder & Chancellor, Medhavi Skills University, Advisor to NSDC.