The world nowadays is facing a wide range of rapidly changing tendencies, and the system of education, which is by far fundamental in the world's future and the future of individuals, needs to undergo certain changes so that to adapt to the modern requirements. Therefore I believe that the institutions of higher education should definitely seek for strategic alliances with other institutions, businesses, and the community in order to be closer to the job-market realities, the demands of the companies, and the needs of society. By doing this, the educational programs can ensure their relevancy and enhance their own value, vastly benefitting the students who will surely become better equipped in their profession in the result to such alliances. For example, Erasmus Mundus Joint Degrees, empowered as the result of strategic alliances among several institutions of higher education, ensures a great quality and relevancy of studies and educates true future experts. Another bright example of strategic alliance is the one between San Jose State University and IBM: it is claimed that “in partnership with IBM, SJSU created a program that provides students with the opportunity to deepen their social networking skills while learning to adapt to real-world business challenges” (King, 2015), pointing out a number of positive outcomes out of such partnership.
However, not everyone approached strategic planning with such an enthusiasm – many of those who lead the institutions of higher education reject the use of “business model” in strategy development. This may be explained by the inner unwillingness to change the processes that were common for decades. Thereby, many universities, having failed in driving strategy-based governance, are left to live the old ways. “Ironically, many of the failures attributed to strategic planning have had little to do with strategic planning process and much more to do with misconceptions and false expectations about strategic planning” (Rowley et al., 2001) – claim Rowley and Sherman, pointing out the correlation between implementation of strategic planning and the institutional failures, occasionally being wrongly blamed for the concept of strategic planning itself.
Leslie and Fretwell predicted the future developments and the great impact of information: “Academic institutions are not immune to the dramatic changes of the emerging Information Age environment and need to be proactive in developing institutional and industrywide changes (Smart, 1999)” – claimed the scientists. A great accessibility to information of any kind required reevaluation of the purpose of university. Currently, online learning, vastly gaining its great popularity, is becoming an alternative to the university courses. Nowadays, the institutions of higher education need to be considered not as an industry, but as the platform for the learners, a collaborative space where they can not only access information, but also analyze, test and experiment on it, bringing the theory into practice.
References
King, M.D (2015, July 17). Why Higher Ed and Business Need to Work Together. Harvard
Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/07/why-higher-ed-and-business-need-to-work-together
Rowley, J. D., Sherman, H. (2001). From Strategy to Change: Implementing the Plan in
Higher Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc.
Smart, C. J. (1999). Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (vol. 16). New
York, NY: Agathon Press.
