Gutama Namomsa Daraje1 and Chala Deyessa Fita2
1, 2Department of Public Administration and Development Management,
College of Business and Economics, Ambo University, Ethiopia.
DOI: 10.23918/ICABEP2021p46
Abstract
The oldest form of industry linkage work, which is common in many of the universities, is giving consultancy service. Recently most of the universities have started student placement works through a formal university industry linkage office specially engineering students. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess the contemporary challenges affecting the university industry linkage in higher institution of Ethiopia, case of Ambo University. In this study descriptive research design was employed with both qualitative and quantitative data. Purposive and simple random sampling methods were used to select the respondent. Data were collected through document analysis, survey questionnaire and semi structured interview. The collected data were analyzed by qualitative descriptive and descriptive statistic using SPSS. The finding of study approves that the main challenges of university industry linkage in the study area are; Lack of commitment from stakeholders, absence of accountability, lack of independent organization (absence of clear U-I structure) for linkage, lack of clear policy that guide the linkage, weak culture of working collaboratively, less attention is given for linkage activities from both sides. Industries have less trust on universities to form linkage, lack of budget transparence, poor communication and follow up, absence of formal structure or responsible department of industry – university linkage of the industries for the formation and follow up of partnership are the main factors affecting university-industries linkage in Ambo University. Finally, based on the finding different recommendations were suggested by the researchers for both university and industries separately.
Keywords: University-Industry Linkage, Ambo University, Challenges of U-I Linkage
ICABEP2021
International Conference on Accounting, Business, Economics and Politics
3rd joint conference organized by the collaboration of the Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics,
Tishk International University, College of Administration and Economics, Salahaddin University-Erbil, and
University of Szczecin, Poland.
