Business-education partnerships serve business and industry by providing activities such as in-service training to employees, use of facilities, student directed projects, software development or marketing research.
They also serve to strengthen instruction in academic skills and to enrich the educational process through the talents and ideas of the personnel of participating businesses.
He states that studies of "business-education partnerships" since the White House announcement in 1983 urging this type of connection between the two sectors, have consistently pointed out that they have had little, if any, impact on producing fundamental change in the educational system.
[5] The evidence of this growing disenchantment by business and industry was seen in the nationwide surveys of employers conducted by the National Center on the Education quality of the Workforce (EQW).
There is a fear that the active involvement of business will encourage governments to retreat from their role as the primary funders of education (Torjman, 1998).