Higher education responsiveness through partnerships with industry: The case of a university of technology programme

ABSTRACT

In the context of mid-level skills shortages and the promotion of industry–education partnerships, this article examines the case of a longstanding partnership between the pulp and paper industry and a university of technology. The partnership resulted in the development of a focused qualification. We explore the experiences and understandings of academics and students in order to examine the benefits and pitfalls of such partnerships in addressing the needs of business, higher education and the students. The results show that while the university of technology has benefitted through work placements for their students and funding for industry-seconded lecturers, the partnership’s links are weakening. The programme is unattractive to high-achieving ‘matric’ graduates and is taken as a stepping-stone to other engineering fields. The article explores why this has developed. The curriculation of qualifications that are narrowly focused on one industry may limit articulation and portability of skills between different industries by graduates.

KEYWORDS:

• Partnerships
• higher education
• curriculum responsiveness
• employability
• knowledge

1. Introduction

Universities used to be somewhat insulated from the swings and tides in broader society, although they often benefitted from state revenue and student tuition fees. The industrial revolution, and more recently the ascendance of neoliberal policy, globalisation and its knowledge economy, has influenced higher education institutions (HEIs) to reconsider their focus. Coupled with fiscal austerity measures, these changes have caused the modern university to shift away from the traditional focus on pure disciplines disconnected from the profane world around them, towards a focus framed by notions of relevance and application (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhodes, 2004). In order to retain their status and relevance in modern society, universities need to be, and are being, responsive to the multiplicity of societal imperatives, especially the need for economic development. Universities are expected to play a pivotal role in solving the problems of unemployment, especially among the youth, and the shortage of skills. Universities are well placed to ‘mine and extract’ knowledge, which is the raw material of the knowledge economy (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). As Muller points out:

there is no doubt we are living in a time of increasing specialisation of knowledge in the STEM domain, driven equally by new discoveries and inventions, new technological challenges and new elaborations in the division of labour – that is, new kinds of jobs and the obsolescence of older ones. (2015:410)

There is an ever-increasing demand for accommodating new forms of knowledge and for better equipping students for the world of work. Because of this, HEIs have become increasingly synonymous with training for ‘employability’. Producing employable students has become a key measure of a HEI’s success, yet there remains unclarity as to what this means. The literature on employability often focuses on the generic skills (often social and communication related) that are deemed necessary for accessing and succeeding in workplaces (for a review see Wedekind, 2013). Yet the knowledge that underpins work is not generic and cannot be replaced by employability skills (Barnett, 2006; Wheelahan, 2007).

The awareness of the importance of higher education–industry partnership is not new (Wright, 1990; Tasker & Packham, 1993; Kruss, 2005b). In South Africa, extensive work on the role of partnerships between universities and industry has demonstrated their centrality in increasing the former’s responsiveness to the economic development imperatives (Jansen, 2002; Kruss, 2005b; Kruss & Letseka, 2005). Kruss & Letseka (2005) view university partnerships with industry to be the fulcrum of the HEIs’ greater responsiveness, and Jansen (2002) illuminates the potential of partnerships in leveraging higher education’s responsiveness. Realising the centrality of partnerships, the South African government established funding schemes, such as the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and the National Research Foundation’s Technology for Human Resources and Innovation Programme (THRIP), to incentivise university–industry partnerships. The role of THRIP, for instance, is to enhance cooperation between HEIs and industry (HESA, 2012). Networks between HEIs and industry are being supported. Universities are finding ways of integrating into the new economy in order to generate the third-stream income and to meet the skills needs of the industry, thus increasing their responsiveness. This has led to the phenomenon of ‘academic capitalism’ (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhodes, 2004; Bisaso, 2013).

Most of the scholarly work on partnerships between HEIs and industry in South Africa has focused on innovation and research (cf. Human Science Research Council, 2003; Kruss, 2005a, 2005b; Kruss & Letseka, 2005; HESA, 2012; Ramazan & Rachel, 2014). Even the primary goal of THRIP is to help industry become more competitive through the use of new technologies, realised through collaboration with HEIs in research (Anderson & Freebody, 2014). In South Africa, although mentioned in passing, a neglected area in the field of HEI–industry partnerships has been empirical studies of the role of industry in producing graduates with scarce skills at low and middle levels. Scholarly work on the role of HEI–industry partnerships in skills development is rare (see Groenewald, 2009). Jansen’s (2002) work on the partnership between the University of Durban-Westville and South Africa's utility company, the Electricity Supply Commission (ESKOM) illuminates the dynamics of HEIs and industry, because it focused only on postgraduate students doing research; it does not shed much light on how industry and HEIs interact to produce engineering graduates with the desired attributes for the workplace. Despite much interest in the HEI–industry partnership in South Africa, knowledge of the experiences of academics and students with such partnership is partial.

In the light of the pervasiveness of the discourse on HEIs’ responsiveness to student employability, this article explores the role of HEI–industry partnerships in skills and knowledge development, particularly in chemical engineering. Drawing on the case study of a Department of Chemical Engineering at a university of technology (UoT) in South Africa, we illuminate the complex dynamics of HEI–industry partnerships in the development of low to mid-level chemical engineers in the pulp and paper industry. This article takes a new look at the role HEI–industry partnerships can play beyond innovation and research. We explore the perceptions of students and academics who are involved in partnerships in order to gain insights into how these partnerships shape the HEIs’ responsiveness and affect the employability of the students.

Drawing on the works of Kruss (2005a, 2005b) and HESA (2012), the next section sets out the framework of HEI–industry partnerships. The third section discusses the issue of employability and what knowledge and skills are deemed to make students employable. The methodology is described in Section 4, while the fifth section presents the case of a partnership between UoT and an industry coordinating body for the paper, pulp and fibre sector (hereinafter referred to as PPI¹). The sixth section considers the findings of the case study in the light of the discussion on partnerships and employability. In the final section we draw conclusions and argue that, while HEI–industry partnerships can be key to institutional responsiveness and skills development, student career needs, immediate and future, also must be considered.

2. Forms of HEI–industry partnerships and their benefits

Kruss (2005a, 2006) and HESA (2012) map out the different forms of HEI–industry partnerships in South Africa. Drawing on the work of Castells (1996), Kruss grouped these partnerships into four broad categories: traditional forms of partnerships, which include donations and sponsorship; dominant new forms of partnership, which include consultancy and contracts; entrepreneurial forms of partnership, which are based on commercialisation; and network forms of partnership, which include collaboration and networking (Kruss, 2005a). Although there is some overlap, Kruss’ typology of HEI and industry partnerships is useful for distinguishing the key features of partnerships in South Africa.

The positive impacts of university–industry partnerships on all players have been demonstrated in the literature (Kruss, 2005a, 2009; Lester & Costley, 2010; Thune, 2011). Such literature has been instrumental in the formulation and nature of policy guidelines that promote formal university–industry interactions. While some academics have reasoned that the traditional functions of universities and their focus have been subverted by external actors (see Crespo & Dridi, 2006), the perceived benefits of university–industry partnerships in augmenting the HEIs’ responsiveness dominate the literature. These benefits extend beyond research and innovation, to include the notions of graduate employability skills and knowledge development (Kruss, 2005b).

The benefits of university–industry partnerships can be grouped into two broad classes: HEIs often turn to partnerships with industry in order to open a third stream of funding, while industry seeks such partnerships because of the complexity of scientific knowledge and the drive for innovation (Crespo & Dridi, 2006). In some cases, partnerships allowed the academics to have additional incomes (Kruss, 2005b, 2006). Wright (1990) notes that external funding allows HEIs to recruit and retain essential staff. Some partnerships with industry have facilitated work placement opportunities or industrial experience for students (Thune, 2011; HESA, 2012; DHET, 2013). The White Paper for Post-School Education and Training notes that the university–industry partnerships, especially through the SETAs and the National Skills Fund, are likely to benefit the industry as the skills gap is addressed (DHET, 2013).

Many of the examples and the literature reviewed here have given little or no consideration to the role played by partnerships in improving the quality of students’ learning and to increasing their employability. Instead, there has been much emphasis on how such partnerships aid research and innovation. Improved learning for lower and mid-level skills was seen as a by-product of partnership.

3. Curriculum responsiveness and student employability

The idea that education systems should be ‘responsive’ can be traced back to the nineteenth century when American and German higher education started to be reformed to increase their relevance (Altbach et al., 2009). As the higher education system became increasingly linked to the training of professionals and simultaneously expanded, its links to employers and their needs became foregrounded. To remain relevant given the rapid pace of social and technological change, education – and vocational education specifically – must be flexible and adaptable by responding to the changing demands of employers. Education institutions are expected to be responsive by developing partnerships with industry, to determine the curriculum in collaboration with employers and to link their staff and students to workplaces (Badroodien & Kraak, 2006).

While the discourse of responsiveness focuses on the education curricula and institutions, there is a parallel discourse of employability that focuses on the student (Hillage & Pollard, 1998; McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005; Cleary et al., 2006; Fejes, 2010). Ghoshal argues that the concept of employability emerged as a response to shifts in the nature of the employer–employee relationship, away from an emphasis on security (within a firm; along a career path; backed up by state benefits) to one of ‘autonomy’ (Ghoshal, 1997). Each individual must manage and mobilise their personal ‘capital’ through various transitions between changing work demands within a firm or between employers. This has been coupled with the idea of the self as a ‘project’ under continuous construction and provides the basis for discourses of lifelong learning, adaptability and articulation (Young, 2008). What this highlights is the way in which the discourse of employability shifts responsibility for employment to the individual.

While there are many different definitions of employability, and the concept has evolved historically, the focus is predominantly on the individual and the set of skills that they bring to the employment equation (Ghoshal, 1997). The employability skills discourse often starts with a checklist of what employers look for when they make decisions about prospective employees. These are the attributes and skills that people need in order to get employed (see Hillage & Pollard, 1998). There is much debate as to what constitutes these skills (cf. Barnett, 2006; Wheelahan, 2007, 2010; Mutereko & Wedekind, 2015). The dominant focus is on generic skills that are linked to attitudes, dispositions and personal characteristics rather than the specific skills required to carry out the tasks associated with the job. This has led to a growing focus on communication and presentation skills, career guidance and such like, rather than job-specific skills.

There has been extensive critique of this narrow skills for employability approach. Drawing on Bernstein’s (1990, 1996) work, Wheelahan (2010) distinguishes between the different types of knowledge that are needed to develop a competent, holistic and employable graduate. She and others argue that focusing narrowly on skills (be they generic soft skills or work-specific skills) fails to understand the relationship of those skills to underpinning knowledge structures (see also Barnett, 2006; Allais, 2014). Wheelahan (2007) distinguishes between sacred or esoteric and mundane types of knowledge. Esoteric knowledge is disciplinary theoretical knowledge, which is the form of knowledge that is needed to ‘think the unthinkable’, to connect the ‘material to immaterial’, the ‘known and the unknown’ (Wheelahan, 2007). Arguing from a social justice perspective, Wheelahan (2010) argues that lack of such knowledge among graduates can deny them opportunities of progression (Wheelahan, 2007).

Mundane or horizontal knowledge refers to the ‘knowledge of the other … knowledge of how it is’ (Wheelahan, 2007:2). Mundane knowledge, also called situated knowledge, is context specific. Its meaning and relevance cannot be easily applied elsewhere. For instance, it may be relevant to a specific workplace and has no meaning outside its context. Mundane knowledge is not easily transferrable.

Theoretical or esoteric knowledge has been marginalised in vocational education (Barnett, 2006; Wheelahan, 2007, 2010). The displacement of theoretical knowledge from the vocational curriculum has been influenced by instrumentalists’ views on vocational education and industry-led curriculum framing. The framing of knowledge in the vocational qualifications is no longer determined by the structure of disciplinary knowledge, but by the industry or occupational fields (Wheelahan, 2010). Disciplinary knowledge has remained only in its re-contextualised or applied form such as mathematics for engineers or biology for nurses. Through various forms of partnerships, the industry has used its influence to promote the production of situated knowledge.

Wheelahan (2007, 2010) and Barnett (2006) have argued for a vocational pedagogy that ‘faces both ways’ and promotes critical thinking skills and allows vertical (progression) and horizontal (from one field to another) articulation. While the situated knowledge is adequate to make one effective at a specific workplace, a mix of disciplinary and situated knowledge allows one to progress to higher levels (Barnett, 2006; Wheelahan, 2007). Further, Barnett (2006) warns that a strong emphasis on situated knowledge in the form of narrow training for specific jobs is not compatible with the ever-changing global labour market demand. He indicates that employers want intelligent, adaptable and knowledgeable employees who can make a positive contribution.

It is against this theoretical background that we analyse the case of higher education responsiveness through a partnership with industry in South Africa.

4. Methodology

The present study draws on individual and focus group interviews and documentary analysis conducted for a larger Labour Market Intelligence Partnership Project, funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training. The focus of the study was to consider institutional responsiveness and student employability in vocational education and training curricula. The Faculty of Engineering at the UoT was one of the seven case studies that were selected to gain insight into educational responsiveness to the employability and skills needs of the country (see Wedekind & Mutereko, 2015). The Faculty of Engineering was selected because of its central position to both the automotive and agribusiness sectors. A comprehensive analysis of the UoT’s engineering programmes and the complex partnerships with professional bodies, the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) and PPI illuminates the intricacy of institutional responsiveness, not just to industry but also to other societal imperatives.

A case-study approach was adopted to illustrate the dynamics of the partnership. One focus group interview was conducted with the deputy dean and nine heads of departments from different engineering departments. Although the focus of this article is on the Department of Chemical Engineering and one specific programme within that department, the views from other heads of department were used to illuminate the uniqueness of the Department of Chemical Engineering. The focus group interviews were followed by three individual interviews, one with the chemical engineering head of department and the other two with the paper and pulp lecturers, who were deployed to the university by the industry body. Two more focus group interviews were conducted, one with chemical engineering students and the other with paper and pulp students.

We specified the issues we wanted to discuss during individual interviews, but we relaxed the sequencing as we interrogated different themes that emerged during the course of each interview. The interview sessions remained conversational yet systematic for each respondent. In order to guarantee anonymity, all respondents in this report are referred to as Focus Group 1 to 3 and Respondent 1 to 3 for the lecturers and the head of department.

Data from interviews were corroborated by documentary evidence from the UoT’s website and Faculty of Engineering handbooks and other documents from the PPI website. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and report themes within the data-set from all of the sources based on the conceptual issues that had emerged from the literature on partnerships and the theoretical discussion on knowledge and curriculum.

5. The Department of Chemical Engineering–PPI partnership

Of all the departments of engineering we surveyed at the UoT, the Department of Chemical Engineering enjoys the strongest ties with the industry. On its website, the department records that it is nationally recognised for chemical engineering teaching and applied research. It endeavours to fulfil the needs of the chemical and allied industries and other societal imperatives. It has established and maintains strong partnerships with the industry. The Department offers a National Diploma, a Bachelor of Technology, a Master of Technology and a Doctorate of Technology in Chemical Engineering. These qualifications are approved by the South African Qualifications Authority and are mostly ECSA accredited.

Because pulp and paper technology is a specialist field with unique processes, graduates from chemical engineering are not specifically prepared to take up positions in the pulp and paper industry. The general chemical engineering programme includes processes that do not apply to the industry, and the peculiarities of the pulp and paper process is not dealt with in enough detail for graduates to be immediately work ready. In addition, because there is high demand for chemical engineers, there is high turnover. One of the lecturers, an expert from the industry who has been seconded to teach at the UoT, said:

We found that we [the pulp and paper industry] used to take on chemical engineers, they learn. What they really need was an experience, we were training them about the plant processes and then they go. Then we’re stuck with the same thing. … and then they’re [gone] and we were not benefitting.

In order to produce graduates that are work ready, and with pulp and paper specialist knowledge and skills, the Department of Chemical Engineering, through a Memorandum of Understanding, formed a partnership with PPI. As a result, the programme, which takes about 20 students per year, is tailor-made to suit the needs of the pulp and paper industry. According to the programme head at the UoT, this partnership dates back to the time when the university was still a technikon, approximately 20 years ago. According to industry reports, over the years this partnership has produced a significant number of graduates with middle-level skills in the pulp and paper industry. These workers have been able to meet the immediate skills needs of the industry in order to realise its vision of enhancing its global competiveness, through staff who operate the modern plant and equipment. The impacts of declining numbers of technicians through retirement and HIV and AIDS have been mitigated through training people specifically for the industry (PPI, 2015).

Approximately 40% of the National Diploma in Pulp and Paper is adapted to the pulp and paper industry, while the other 60% is similar to the National Diploma in Chemical Engineering. It is envisaged that graduates from this programme would assume supervisory roles in the pulp and paper mills, depending on their capabilities. In terms of articulation, on completion of the National Diploma in Pulp and Paper, graduates may enrol for the Bachelor of Technology: Pulp and Paper. The content of this programme is almost 100% customised to the pulp and paper industry. This degree prepares students for technical managerial positions.

PPI fully supports the pulp and paper programme at the UoT. PPI seconded three pulp and paper specialists to assist in the designing and teaching of the programmes that meet the specific demands of the pulp and paper industry. The programme head observed that the industry has often exercised its influence to shape the structure and content of the programme. There are frequent meetings between university-based lecturers and their counterparts in the industry. Such meetings sometimes result in adjustments and/or additions to the programme:

We meet at least twice a year. We discuss what’s going on here and then they discuss what’s happening in industry, how the students are performing. Like two years, three years ago, we realised that we needed to introduce one more subject, Process Control, and then we introduced it.

The three staff members are fully funded by PPI. Their research and conference attendance are also funded by the industry. Although information on the UoT Department of Chemical Engineering website indicates that students in the pulp and paper programme are awarded bursaries, which cover full tuition fees and a monthly stipend, information gathered through interviews with students and lecturers indicates that this is no longer the case. Postgraduate students are able to obtain bursaries offered by PPI member companies.

The courses and modules on pulp and paper in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the UoT are South African Qualifications Authority accredited, but they are not recognised by ECSA. The head of the programme indicated that the pulp and paper course was not an engineering programme, and that they had consequently never sought accreditation with ECSA.

The Department of Chemical Engineering partnership with PPI seems to suggest a successful, seamless collaboration in skills development. Considering that this collaboration has been in existence for approximately two decades, we can speculate that all parties could be benefitting from the partnership. What follows next is an exploration of the Faculty of Engineering staff and students’ experiences of the partnership with PPI in terms of both the benefits and challenges.

6. University–industry partnerships: The experiences

6.1. Funding and expertise

The UoT has gained from the partnership through funding of staff, postgraduate students and research, and has gained relevant technical expertise from the industry. One lecturer who has been seconded to teach in the programme for the past three years spoke about the benefits:

I’m still on the payroll [of the industry]. So, I teach the technology subjects for my pulp and paper because it’s very intensive and then I do an introductory programme for chemical engineers. Some chemical engineers find themselves in the paper industry … 

The programme also receives guest lecturers from the industry. These lecturers provide current and relevant information, which is important in preparing students for work. One lecturer gave a positive appraisal of their contribution to the UoT:

It’s [pulp and paper processes] highly intensive theory and [ … ], they’re fortunate that I’m here, because I really give everything [from the] industry. In fact this programme has become very popular now. We get an annual [student] rating of first class.

In addition to giving instruction to their own students, the industry experts teach other engineering students’ modules, such as physical chemistry and engineering physics. This is a significant benefit to the university in terms of human resources and funding, as these lecturers are paid by PPI. It also exposes the general chemical engineering students to aspects of the pulp and paper industry.

6.2. Work-integrated learning issues

The students from the Department of Chemical Engineering in general, and the pulp and paper programme in particular, do not find problems in securing work placement to do their work-integrated learning (WIL). The head of department for chemical engineering confirmed that they have always achieved 100% work placement. This is a result of the strong ties with the industry. Work placement was a critical challenge for other engineering departments we surveyed, where students struggled to all find placement and this caused a major problem for ‘throughput’ as students could not complete. In addition, where students did find places it was difficult for lecturers to access the workplaces because of the stringent occupational health and safety concerns. For the pulp and paper programme staff this did not appear to be a concern because they were employed by the industry and were trusted by companies.

Like other engineering departments, however, the pulp and paper lecturers complained about the structure and about WIL at the UoT. They complained that the government’s funding formula does not value WIL. Furthermore, the assessment, planning and other logistics of WIL are taxing. They have to travel in order to offer assistance and assess their students and still come back to teach. There is also university pressure to publish and increase their qualifications, and spending time travelling to work sites all over the country reduced the time for research. They also identified the key role that work-based supervisors played in ensuring a positive learning outcome for students, and this was largely beyond their control.

6.3. Low-profile programme

The paper and pulp programme is viewed by both partners as an effective way to address the skills mismatch between what employers want and what the UoT teaches. Despite the fact that most of the students were inspired by, and satisfied with, the level of knowledge and expertise of the lecturers, there were some issues identified that raised concerns about the effectiveness of the partnership for industry and the students.

The head of the programme noted that this is ‘not a high profile’ programme and is ‘shunned by high achieving matriculants’. The reasons for this varied. There was little career guidance and marketing of the pulp and paper programme at the UoT, and even less at school level. Almost all of the students we interviewed did not know about the programme before they came to the UoT. They had applied for chemical engineering, but either because of not meeting the entry requirements or late applications they could not be enrolled. One student described how she ended up being in the pulp and paper programme:

… when I came here I was actually coming to study Chemical Engineering, but then I found out that they had already registered the students, so I didn’t get the space, then that’s how I got to Pulp and Paper, ‘cause Pulp and Paper it’s like exactly with the Chemical Engineering, so I didn’t see that much difference, so then that’s how I got to it and I enjoy studying it.

Most of the students in the paper and pulp programme had similar experiences. The programme head conceded that they often take students who might have been rejected by the chemical engineering programme in order to meet enrolment targets. This has led to a lower status perception of the programme among students. According to the programme head, students increasingly take the pulp and paper programme as a ‘back door’ strategy, or a stepping-stone to chemical engineering because there is an articulation route into a chemical engineering degree. The fact that the pulp and paper programme is not accredited by ECSA and its graduates cannot use their qualifications for professional registration as technologists or engineers might also have led to its lower status perception among the students. Most the students expressed the desire to do a chemical engineering degree after their National Diploma in Pulp and Paper. The programme head pointed out that the programme was limited in scope and narrowly focused on one industry, rather than an occupation, restricting mobility out of the specific industry.

6.4. High rate of student attrition

While acknowledging the low-status perception of the programme among the students, the pulp and paper lecturer noted that the level of technical difficulty was the same as for chemical engineering. Like the chemical engineering programme, the pulp and paper programme also has a high attrition rate. One of the major reasons for this dropout was poor performance that led to exclusion. The pulp and paper lecturers problematised the preparedness of high school students for university education, particularly in physical sciences and mathematics. Because of this, their graduation rates are about 30 to 40%. The students and lecturers observed that, besides poor performance, the high student attrition rate is attributed to financial challenges. All of the students we interviewed depended on bursaries from National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), which they said had many complications.

6.5. Weakening links

Despite the very positive view of the partnership and programme held by the lecturers, there were signs of decline. Compared with when the UoT was still a technikon, the head of the programme felt the partnership had weakened considerably. Consequently, he speculated that the partnership might reach its end in the near future. Among other reasons, he singled out the harsh macro-economic environment, which was putting the industry under stress. In real terms, the level of funding to the UoT from PPI has declined. In tough economic contexts, training and education is often viewed as peripheral and can therefore be cut. Perhaps most significantly, as already mentioned, bursary funding from industry had also declined. This had a serious impact on the recruitment of high-achieving students because there was no longer any attempt to recruit students directly from high schools as had been the practice in the past. Without the attraction of bursaries, the programme was dependent on general applications, and was then competing against higher status programmes. One of the lecturers indicated that industry had decided to stop the bursaries because the state was providing NSFAS funding.

A further aspect affecting the partnership was the increasing pressure from the UoT to claim and increase its academic autonomy since its conversion from a technikon. Historically, technikon curricula were nationally coordinated and largely standardised. With the shift to university status, each institution had full authority to offer unique curricula. This manifested in increasing requirements by the institution to include new components in the curriculum, such as electives and core modules. This meant that the focused industry input was being diluted.

7. Discussion

In many respects the partnership between the PPI and the UoT is exemplary. For instance, there has been a long-term commitment by both parties to the programme, including paying the staff. In contrast to Wright’s suggestion that the nature and conditions of employment for people engaged to serve partnerships are often poor and short-lived (Wright, 1990), our case study does not confirm this. The evidence that the head of the programme has been at the UoT for the past 15 years is a clear indication that such partnerships can last. The experts seconded by PPI are still on the pay-roll of PPI. Furthermore, industry has been interacting with the UoT on an ongoing basis and for some years the students were also supported financially. Critically, there is a commitment to open up workspaces for WIL and reportedly almost all of the graduates are absorbed by industry. The primary motive of PPI in this partnership was, and still is, the need to solve the shortage of low-level to middle-level skills in the industry and this appears to have been achieved. Yet there are a number of issues that were highlighted which raise both practical and conceptual issues with the partnership.

The UoT has enjoyed the services of expert lecturers and financial support. The experts seconded to the UoT do not teach pulp and paper students only, but other engineering students in modules that transcend pulp and paper technology. Through their industrial ‘hands-on’ experience, these experts enriched the undergraduate teaching (Kruss, 2005b). Although Kruss (2005b) suggests that the enrichment of the undergraduate programme is a by-product of HEI–industry innovation and research partnerships, in the UoT–PPI partnership it is the main product. This partnership enables the UoT to be responsive to the specific needs of the industry.

The partnership between the Department of Chemical Engineering and PPI has helped pulp and paper students to access WIL placement. The White Paper for Post-School Education and Training highlights this as one of the important benefits of such partnerships (HESA, 2012; DHET, 2013). Although the pulp and paper programme at the UoT is tightly bound to the industry, it is not insulated from the problems associated with WIL, such as logistic complexity. This problem, however, is not unique to pulp and paper students and staff (see Mutereko & Wedekind, 2015).

Although the chemical engineering qualification was not entirely changed, the tweaked programme was seen as a way of supplying skills that narrowly suit the pulp and paper industry (Slaughter & Rhodes, 2004). PPI has exerted influence on the structure and content of the qualification. Modules such as Process Control were introduced at the behest of the industry, in order to meet its needs. It is interesting to note that the programme was established in response to a perceived gap in the curriculum of the general chemical engineering programme. While much of the focus on employability skills has been on generic or soft skills, this programme has foregrounded industry-specific knowledge. Indeed, university-wide initiatives to broaden the curriculum and include general knowledge and skills were viewed with concern as a possible dilution of the core knowledge. While the knowledge is industry specific and employer led, it is not tied into a broader occupational category and its lack of recognition by ECSA leads students in the programme to seek bridges into a general engineering qualification. This raises a question about the level of industry specificity that is useful in a formal qualification. There is little doubt that a close alignment between the curriculum and industry-specific work processes is likely to result in smoother transitions between study and work contexts, but this tight alignment limits the students’ prospects of progression (Barnett, 2006; Wheelahan, 2007). The unintended consequence is that students with career ambitions do not view the programme as desirable and the overall status has declined. This is despite the fact that students on the programme were consistently absorbed by industry and therefore the students were clearly employable. Given this, the low-status perception attached to the pulp and paper programme by students was surprising. The discontinuation of bursaries had also contributed to this perception because it no longer attracted applications from high-achieving school students. It was clear that the quality of the programme was high. However, the urge by almost all students to change their qualifications to chemical engineering degrees suggests that the programme is no longer achieving its core purpose.

8. Conclusion

While the need for HEIs to embrace industry in partnerships in order to galvanise their responsiveness to the need for employability skills among graduates is being encouraged (Lester & Costley, 2010; HESA, 2012; DHET, 2013), the indication that the UoT partnership with PPI might be weakening suggests this is no simple matter. The issue of student employability is more complex than simply meeting the immediate skills needs of industry. A simplistic correspondence between employer-identified needs and an academic programme may not achieve the desired outcome, not because of poor curriculum or even poor teaching, but because the programme is not understood by students and does not meet their needs. This may be partly a consequence of poor marketing, but also flags the desire of students to have clear and recognised progression routes.

In the context of economic pressures, it is not surprising that industry, which is established to make profit, may cut back on what it considers non-essential. It is also important to note, however, that such a strategy may simply serve to defer the problem, which may haunt them in the medium to long term in terms of skills supply.

This case study has led us to conclude that HEI–industry partnerships focused on industry-specific programmes do not necessarily enable HEIs to be responsive to the need for employability attributes among graduates in South Africa. Although the interactions in these partnerships are mutualistic, bespoke programmes that are narrowly focused on one industry may limit the employability of graduates in the long term in terms of articulation and portability of skills between different industries. We argue that any examination of HEI–industry partnership in skills development should consider the type of knowledge that emerges from such vocational education. Because of their inclination towards profit making and the need for graduates who can ‘hit the ground running’, it can be argued that industry would readily promote the production of situated knowledge in the form of tailor-made vocational programmes, which may not be relevant for graduates’ lifelong learning and progression. Scholarly work and, to some extent, policy has not paid much attention to the role of such partnerships and their effects on the students. Although limited to one HEI and one industry, our findings provide a stimulus for further academic research into the role of HEI–industry partnerships in the development of skills for employability in the post-secondary school system in South Africa.

Acknowledgements

This article emerged from Theme 4 of the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership Project conducted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Human Sciences Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The Labour Market Intelligence Partnership Project was funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training.

Notes

¹This is not the real name of the organisation.