Interaction to Partnership: A New Dimension to Industry-Institute relationship –Learning from Asian Countries successful experience

The impact of technological evolution has changed the view of every higher educational institution in the world to consider a change right from having problem solving interactions with industry to setting up incubation centers. The journey of cooperation between industry and institute has taken different forms in different times at different geographies. Historically, it started with simple interaction and gradually evolved to very close partnership overtime. There has been a wide variety of interactions practiced among industries and institutes which includes problem solving, curriculum development, study visits, scholarships, and apprenticeship training and incubation center. Arab, getting ready for internationalization at a fast pace is seriously looking into this to adapt and learn from successful initiatives all around the world with respect to industry institute interaction to strengthen its higher education sector and also benefit from the already established industry. The relationship to derive between institute and industry has been regarded as a natural progression of relationship from interaction elevated to structural partnership where the industrial sector assumes substantial operational risks in the design and implementation of educational projects. This paper attempts to discuss the evolution of this relationship with respect to Asia pacific countries to north east Africa and broadly discuss the inherent bases of cooperation, the objectives and the nature of various forms of interaction. It also explains a case study of a successful initiative in one of the Asian countries and tries to relate the findings with respect to Oman. The main idea is to share the learning experiences of the strong developing economies which implemented the concept and achieved success. It also tries to see the premises which make industry- institute interaction critical now. This paper will also throw some light on a new dimension called “Corporate Social Responsibility”