Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Minister Ahsan Iqbal was correct when he told the meeting of the Animal Husbandry Committee and the vice-chancellors of veterinary colleges that it was important for the forging of robust connections between academia and industry, besides the quipping of individuals with essentials skills for achieving economic progress. He thus pointed out the two means whereby academia serves industry. Apart from actually dealing with the actual problems faced by industry, academia plays an important role in preparing individuals to work in industry. From such no-brainer skills as reading and writing, academia provides industry not just with the technologists it needs, but also the administrators who put together all the elements to make things work. Skills useful in industry are particularly important in a country that is seeking foreign investment. It is not necessary that someone fresh out of college should be able to work in a factory, but he should be trainable, which should be the purpose of an educational system.
Another dimension, which is more aspirational at the moment, is that industrial issues be solved in academia. This requires not just that academia be routinely and actively involved in research, but that industry must be engaged in innovation and creativity, which would require research to be performed. Industry must be capable of asking the right questions, and industry of answering. Mr Iqbal directed his remarks towards animal husbandry, and while the tweaks to a new breed of buffalo or sheep might be profitable to individual livestock owners, what is really needed is the backing of academia to industry. Though there has been an influx of the private sector in higher education, the government still has a very large role to play. Having separate research institutions does not seem to have been as fruitful as was thought, and either the researchers should be returned to academia, or those institutions should start taking on students.
Mr Iqbal did not refer to a problem: money. Not just who would finance the research, but who would benefit. While researchers would need to be funded by industry, grants for specific issues would make sense to hard-headed businessmen, general research would not. They would have to be convinced that such apparently meaningless research would solve the industrial problems of the future. Then there is the issue that some research might lead to immense profits for industry. What is the mechanism whereby the researcher would benefit? That question must also be answered to unleash the talent of the Pakistani people.
