Tips and advice on business partnerships with education

Partnerships between business, industry, and education are increasingly becoming common. These are usually collaborations to set up specific objectives and work together to achieve them.

Business partnerships with schools and colleges are usually beneficial to both the education community and business fraternity. For one, the students gain the requisite skills that are relevant to the current work environment. For another, the business community benefits through well-trained employees who enhance productivity and profitability.

There are various types of business-education partnerships. These are:

• Consultative: The partnership aims at gathering ideas to implement a strategy.
• Contributory: The partnership aims at improving the current situation.
• Operational: The partnership is aimed at working together and delegation of tasks to specific parties;
• Collaborative: The involvement is geared towards sharing of resources for the benefit of the community. This can be achieved through collaboration with learning institutions to assist with fundraising activities and literacy programs, among other initiatives that benefit the community.

This article highlights the steps involved in effectively forming a business-educational partnership. The steps are as follows:

Assessment of critical needs

The first step in this process is to assess the critical needs of the students. All stakeholders need to gather and carry out an evaluation of needs that have not been met and discuss how they affect the quality of the learning experience. Possible issues include underfunding, understaffing or a shortage of skilled tutors.

Assessing the potential contribution of each partner

Before deciding on a partner to work with, it is imperative to evaluate their potential impact on the partnership. It would not be beneficial to collaborate with a partner who has insignificant potential benefit. Chosen partners must be able to make a big impact that enhances the learning outcomes to adhere to the vision of the program.

Tapping the available resources

In such a program, there are some stakeholders involved. These might include the community living around the school, parents, teachers, students, industry experts, NGOs as well as governmental education officials. This step is important because each party can offer beneficial insight on how to integrate a solid partnership as well as resource support.

Determine the schools or students that need more support

Different schools have different needs. Likewise, they also face different challenges. Some schools have better facilities and learning environments. Others use more efficient curricula that enhance the acquisition of skills. Therefore, determining the schools that need greater support will help in the proper allocation of resources.

Make the necessary community connections

One method of laying the groundwork for the partnerships is to make connections with local business people, more so if some of them are parents. In every town or city, there are also various non-governmental organizations, rotary clubs, and support groups among others. Members of the local community are likely to be more willing to collaborate as opposed to distant connections.

Create a proposal

Once all stakeholders and community connections have been identified, a proposal for a partnership program needs to be drafted. This can be done by a professional essay help writer or someone who has excellent writing skills. However, the members would first sit down and decide on what is expected. The contribution of each stakeholder should be taken into account during the formulation of this proposal. Most importantly, write down how the partnership is supposed to work. Besides, address the requirements of all the parties that are directly involved. Mention the benefits expected to be achieved, the timeline for achieving the advantages, and how the partnership is expected to run smoothly.

Discuss the proposal

Once the proposal is complete, it is important to hold a discussion and evaluate its content in details. The major objective of having a proposal is to convince the target partner that your partnership is a good option. The aim is to ensure that the proposal gets a proper review and the necessary adjustments made. This will ensure that the best terms for the partnership are met. Furthermore, the partnership will have higher chances of yielding success.

Implementation of the proposal

At this stage, all the proposed activities need to be actualized within the school as well as the business environment. The level of participation of each stakeholder needs to be established. A formal structure of management should be created with the contact addresses in case anything goes wrong or there is a misunderstanding.

Conclusion

Partnerships can take various forms. However, the common objective of nearly all school-business collaborations is to enhance the educational experience. Besides improving education experience, the business associates also enjoy some rewards such as a robust presence in society and better image.