The Higher Education Commission has set up stringent criteria for admission to MS, MPhil and PhD programmes, in line with international standards. These criteria encourage regular students to pursue research work.

However, since the dimension of professional work experience has been completely ignored, it discourages industry professionals from participating in research activities. This is a serious flaw.

It is, therefore, imperative for the HEC to introduce separate criteria for enrollment to MS, MPhil and PhD courses in universities, that will enable them to offer research opportunities to mid-career professionals, while waiving some coursework requirements.

This would pave the way for linkages between industry and academia, and also enhance the practical usefulness of research work undertaken by research scholars.

Time and again, academics have highlighted the robust growth in publication of research papers, but a lot needs to be done in terms of practical usefulness of the research work for meeting the needs of industry.

Moreover, industry-specific reliable data is difficult to gather, and there also is the need to identify industry’s research needs. The HEC may develop a project under which research needs of different industries may be identified and a database of vital historical data may be maintained to facilitate research work.

Another impediment for mid-career industry professionals is the addition of two extra years in the higher education value chain at the graduate level. Industry professionals normally possess 16 years of education, which is now equivalent to the number of years of education required to complete a bachelor’s degree.

This has seriously threatened the prospects for career growth of many professionals. Consequently, in order to qualify for admission into a PhD programme, they have to first enroll into a 1.5 or 2-year MS or MPhil programme, which is unfair.

Now, the requirement of writing a research paper has been waived by HEC by incorporating another track in MS/ MPhil programmes, under which a research scholar can opt to enroll in six credit hours of coursework instead of undertaking research work for 30 credit hours.

In order to cope with this problem, universities may offer PhD programmes under which requisite coursework may be completed in a year and a half, so that research scholars with professional experience may focus more on writing and defending their PhD theses as per HEC’s guidelines, satisfying all requirements for quality research work.

The HEC should make it mandatory for universities to assess the job market in order to identify the needs of employers before designing and offering postgraduate degree courses. Universities should also publicise job market data to attract students. This would further bridge the gap between industries and academia.heavymails@aol.com