By James Mphande, contributor
It is not every day that you hear about lecturers, imparters of skills and knowledge in higher education institutions, going out to learn from non-academics.
So it was ideally odd that some workers at Illovo Sugar Malawi in Nchalo, NxtGen Labs in Blantyre, Kawandama Plantations in Mzimba and Global Health Informatics Institute (GHII) in Lilongwe, among others, woke up one morning to seeing strangers joining them in their daily activities.
They learnt later that these were lecturers from one of the public universities coming for industrial attachments. For the majority, it was a first.
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Normally, it is staff in these private and public institutions that go to institutions of higher education to upgrade their skills and knowledge.
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But, according to Richard Nkhoma, Head of Engineering Department at the Malawi University of Science and Technology (Must), universities do not operate in a vacuum and, as such, they have to transfer knowledge and skills that are relevant and can be used in industries and communities for national development.
Nkhoma states there is need for university-industry engagement to share skills and knowledge gaps and address them.
“Traditionally, universities have consulted industry captains during curriculum development or review and when developing or reviewing strategic plans; they have had students going out to industries for internship, have engaged industry experts to present public lectures, students have gone out on industry education visits and faculties have been engaged on consultancies by industries, among others.
“This time we are talking about faculty members also going on industrial placements where they are learning a few things that would help in informing their teaching and curriculum development,” Nkhoma said.
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Apart from learning from the industries where they are attached to, the Must Engineering Department faculty members also initiated studies on how to improve performance by analysing the work or production flow to appreciate areas of weakness that may need improvement for increased efficiency.
The placements at each company lasted a maximum of one month, owing to lack of resources to support longer stays.
Nkhoma, while expressing gratitude to the Government of Malawi and the World Bank-supported Skills for a Vibrant Economy (Save) project at Must for providing resources for the initiative, said the resources could not support longer period of the industrial placements.
The Save project has various interventions aimed at realising increased access and equity in higher education such as construction and infrastructure, open and distance e-learning incorporation, connectivity and learning and teaching material acquisition.
For Nkhoma, while a longer period of attachment would have been ideal to both the lecturers and the host institutions, critical lessons were learnt all the same.
“Most importantly, partnerships have established and in some cases, areas of further collaboration in either research, consultancy or capacity building were identified and would be followed up with action,” he said.
The host institutions hailed the initiative, describing it as the first of its kind.
They also wished there were more of such collaborations.
“Ideally, it should benefit both parties, but the period was short. In our case, due to the short period that the lecturer was here, we did not give her enough assignments due to the nature of our business.
“We are so much into projects and technologies that require people to work in teams for longer periods, but this could not work with the visiting lecturer as she was here for just a month and there was fear that if placed in some teams, she would leave before completion of the project,” NxtGen Labs Innovation Manager Amos Kudzala said.
Nebson Chiloko, an official at Kawandama Hills, said he valued the arrangement.
“In my case, I was thrilled with interventions the team undertook in areas of distillation process optimisation, increasing boiler efficiency, investing the ideal conditions for maximum oil yields and quality.
“We thought the period was not enough because automation of oil-water separation process and draining and co-development of academic programmes targeting essential oil production needed more time,” Chiloko said.
One of the lecturers involved, MacJoe Kumcheza, said the initiative was an eye opener.
“We were able to appreciate the conditions and the resources that most of our industries use and that alerted us to the need to customise our teaching and learning, even the curriculum, to respond to the local environment,” Kumcheza said.
Another lecturer, Ruth Mtuwa, said the attachment had multiple benefits.
“I was exposed to multidisciplinary experiences, adaptive learning, problem-solving variety, mentorship and learning, diversity in tasks, establishing collaboration with Must (Design Studio), innovation testing and adaptation,” Mtuwa said while bemoaning the limited learning time for the many things she would have wanted to try out.
She also recommended frequent implementation of the industrial attachment programme, regularised schedule and integration of the programme in the curriculum.
The engineering lecturers also visited over 20 different companies nationwide to pinpoint industrial skills gaps and cultivate collaborative partnerships with industries.
The higher education sector is currently embracing the Education 5.0 concept where, apart from teaching, research, outreach and innovation, universities are encouraged to embrace entrepreneurship and collaborations between universities and the industry.
Apart from knowledge and skills sharing, these collaborations offer opportunities for collaboration into joint entrepreneurial ventures.
With Malawi 2063 anchored on agriculture productivity and commercialisation, industrialisation and urbanisation, universities have a critical role in the realisation of this development blueprint.
