Dr. Lawrence Seseni is a lecturer in the department of business management and Enactus UJ faculty adviser, Mr. Semanga Mabuza is a lecturer in the department of business management and Enactus UJ, and Prof. Tankiso Moloi is the executive dean of the College of Business and Economics at the University of Johannesburg.
They recently published an opinion article that first appeared in the Sowetan Live on 27 February 2025
In his state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted unemployment as the top national concern.
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS – Quarter four:2024) found the number of unemployed youth (15-35) was 4.7-million. Statists places graduate unemployment at about 10%.
Given the high levels of unemployment in SA, some sentiments have focused on the university curriculum as misaligned with what the job market requires. One of the alternative approaches emphasises entrepreneurship education.
The job market cannot absorb all graduates, and as such, a viable solution to address the problem should be found.
The idea of entrepreneurship education is not new. As early as 1912, Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter had long considered entrepreneurship as a key element of growth. In his treatise, Schumpeter concluded that entrepreneurs were economic disrupters who drive economic growth and progress.
In developed countries such as the UK, entrepreneurship education was first introduced in the 1900s, as a result of state-owned enterprises that could not remain effective anymore and new solutions were needed to boost the economy. Small businesses were seen as the solution to this problem.
Similarly, in the late 1900s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) changed its focus to emphasise small businesses. This resulted in many small businesses being created in rural and urban areas. The PRC followed this decision by introducing entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions. It supported students in starting and growing their businesses through business plan competitions and many other initiatives.
In SA, we see some moves towards this approach. In supporting entrepreneurship education in universities, Universities SA, the umbrella body representative of the 26 public universities, in partnership with the department of higher education, has introduced entrepreneurship development in higher education.
Funding is made available to support entrepreneurship in tertiary education. This initiative holds annual competitions for student entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship educators. Universities have also established a technology transfer office, which, among other things, is aimed at helping students protect their intellectual property and commercialise their innovations.
The World Bank report shows that “entrepreneurship education increased self-employment among participants about one year after graduation”. Given this, and to prepare graduates for the world beyond the university, lecturers at the University of Johannesburg’s College of Business and Economics (CBE) have been promoting entrepreneurship education among its students.
It was identified that small businesses ordinarily struggled to market their products. Students were encouraged to find solutions to this problem and one of the areas they identified was that these small businesses did not have an online presence.
The business idea was to launch an online store to assist market the products. Part of the project involved business clinics where students were taught to move beyond the ideation phase to the formation of the business. In this regard, students were exposed to starting, launching and managing an e-commerce store.
