THE pandemic has stirred up debate at universities everywhere. Apart from deliberating on how universities should adapt to the new normal, which involves more online teaching and assessment, discussions on the true role of universities have taken a new twist.
In past years, the performance of universities has always been measured by how effective they have been in supplying graduates for the industry. There has been feedback from companies suggesting that universities have not been producing graduates who meet industry requirements.
A lack of interpersonal and communication skills has always been cited about poorly performing graduates.
The industry has largely blamed universities for not keeping up with its demands for quality graduates.
Even the ranking of universities has been closely linked to how industries perceive them. Universities that do not enjoy a favourable industry assessment and perception would usually perform poorly in the ranking exercise.
Since ranking, whether one likes it or not, has evolved into a yardstick by stakeholders, universities strive to fulfil the ranking demands.
Furthermore, it has become a norm that high-ranked universities not only attract more students, but also receive a higher amount of funding in research from the government.
Private universities have no choice but to embrace rankings to attract students, especially foreign students. Foreign students do not have much guidance to choose the university they like.
Ranking helps a lot in making the choice. Lately, there has been a noticeable change in how university dons view the relationship between universities and industry.
Some have questioned whether universities are there to serve the needs of industry or to provide leadership to industry. Everyone agrees that universities have always been looked up to as a reservoir of knowledge.
This means universities have to create and assimilate knowledge related to the sciences, arts, humanities and more. For society to gain and benefit from the knowledge, universities conduct teaching and other knowledge-disseminating activities, such as outreach seminars.
The research and development that universities do, on the other hand, are meant to add to the knowledge pool. The industry is supposed to benefit from the knowledge produced at universities, in terms of new business and technology opportunities.
As recently echoed by a few university vice-chancellors, including Senior Professor Datuk Dr Khalid Yusoff of UCSI University, it is now time for universities to produce and disseminate knowledge that has meaning and value to the community, which includes the industry.
The argument is that, if knowledge from universities command the right meaning and value, then it would not be far fetched to see industry flocking to universities for new business and technology ideas. In fact, if we study closely the development of universities in the past, that has always been the role of universities.
Some of the top universities in the world still keep to that role.
It is unfortunate that in recent times, mainly because of the growing number of knowledge- intensive jobs, universities have been called upon by industry to produce talent that meet the specifications proposed by industry.
As a result, the meaning and value of knowledge produced at universities have been regressing.
Some have even likened universities to being not much different from technical and vocational colleges, which have always been performing that role as a so-called job factory.
A few have suggested that the thought leadership expected from universities has been lacking.
The founding president of the Academy, Tan Sri Omar Abdul Rahman, has lamented that it is now difficult to find a truly "complete academic" in universities. He has come out with criteria on how to measure a complete academic.
Many academics have suggested the idea of holding more discourses on the subject of bringing more meaning and value to university education.
There is a growing belief that universities will gain more respect from society if, instead of just catering to the demand of businesses, provide meaningful leadership to industry.
The writer is a Fellow, Academy of Science, UCSI University