Outcome Oriented Academia-Industry Handshaking: Improvised Strategy for Delivering Industry-Ready Engineers

This paper is an attempt to identify the gaps in engineering education framework which is failing to deliver market-ready professionals in real sense. A multi-layered analysis of existing engineering education practices was carried out to understand the significant reasons. The methodology of course delivery and evaluation has been critically examined. Further, the implementation aspect of industry-academia collaboration has been analysed. It has been observed that the academia has designed multiple options for engaging industry like guest lectures, workshop, industry visits, conferences etc. The main issue with this model is that there is no defined parameter to gauge the outcome of such academia-industry interaction. Many successful attempts have been carried out by academia to collaborate with industry for incubating the ideas but this doesn't contribute to imparting work-skills to the students. In absence of well-defined benefits to the industry, their participation in this collaboration appears to be limited. This study proposes an improvised strategy of outcome based academia-industry handshaking. The proposal includes the possible implementation methodology which can be adopted, its economic viability and benefits for industry, academia and students.