A recurring theme ahead of EAES26 is the gap between what graduates learn and what employers actually need. Across the region, employers continue to report a mismatch between graduate competencies and labour market requirements — a finding that has held since the original 2014 IUCEA study and was echoed again in the World Bank’s 2015 Enterprise Survey.

Closing that gap is less about any single fix than about closer, more continuous collaboration between universities, TVET institutions and industry — from curriculum design through to work placements. EAES26 will convene higher education leaders, TVET institutions and employers to compare notes on what stronger education-industry linkages look like in practice.

The summit’s breakout sessions on Day 1 are structured around exactly this: education, policy, industry and innovation tracks running in parallel so participants can go deep on the collaboration models most relevant to them.