Universities South Africa (USAf), through its Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) programme, just started a series of regional workshops to equip university leadership, faculty, and support professionals with the knowledge, tools, and frameworks they need to develop and sustain entrepreneurial ecosystems.
The fruition of this capacity development programme is credited to a four-way partnership between USAf and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the primary sponsor of the EDHE programme; the United States Embassy in South Africa, through its Fulbright Specialist Programme, and ABSA Bank, through a R5 million grant aimed at supporting EDHE’s flagship programmes, including the workshop series that commenced on 9 May. The Fulbright Specialist Programme, which enables countries to leverage international expertise and best practices in numerous disciplines, has deployed a senior academic to lead the six-week training programme as part of the US government’s entrepreneurship support to South Africa’s higher education sector.
Another supporter of this capacity development initiative, especially its extension to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), is South Africa’s Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI). The department contributed R140,000 to enable participants from three universities outside South Africa, but within the SADC region, to also benefit.
On Wednesday, 9 May, USAf hosted a dinner to formally welcome Professor Paul Miesing, Emeritus Professor of Business and the Fulbright Specialist and the US Embassy in South Africa deployee, to facilitate these workshops. He brings in decades of experience in strategic management and social enterprise education to bear, as he equips university leadership, academic staff, and support professionals with the tools to integrate entrepreneurship into their taught curricula and embed it within institutional culture.
The USAf CEO, Dr Phethiwe Matutu, addresses the intimate dinner welcoming the visiting Fulbright scholar in the presence of US Embassy in South Africa officials, representatives of the ABSA Group, the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, and university leaders. USAf’s senior leadership and staff also attended.
This initiative will reach 150 trainers nominated from South Africa’s 26 public universities, the Botswana University of Science and Technology, the National University of Lesotho, and the University of Zambia. The nominees are a mixture of deputy vice-chancellors of teaching and learning, research and innovation; deans; directors; academic staff; and innovation professionals involved in curriculum development, pedagogical training and policy alignment. The workshops will enhance entrepreneurship curriculum development, foster innovation-driven teaching methodologies, and align institutional policies with global best practices in entrepreneurship education.
Following these workshops, participating institutions should be able to design actionable implementation plans and strategic frameworks to embed entrepreneurship into their core academic offerings, contributing to a dynamic and innovation-driven higher education landscape in South Africa and beyond.
According to Dr Edwell Gumbo, Director: EDHE, the success of this initiative will manifest in:
- Enhanced entrepreneurship curriculum and teaching practices
- Strengthened institutional policies and strategic alignment
- Improved university-based entrepreneurial ecosystems
- Increased capacity for mentorship and student support
- Stronger industry and ecosystem linkages
- Actionable entrepreneurship roadmaps for universities and
- Sustainable impact on graduate employability and economic development
The train-the-trainer workshops
USAf’s Director for Operations and Sector Support, Mr Mahlubi Chief Mabizela (right), explained at the dinner event, that the initiative will be rolled out through a series of two-day regional workshops across six regions. They commenced in the Western Cape, combining all universities located in that province from 9 to 10 May, proceeding to the Eastern Cape from 13 to 14 May, KwaZulu-Natal from 16 to 17 May, Mpumalanga (combining the universities of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Venda) from 20 to 21 May, the Central Region (Free State) from 23 to 24 May, culminating in Gauteng from 27 to 28 May. Ultimately, the workshops will reach all member universities of USAf, each having deployed five participants.
The workshops are designed to be highly interactive, using the train-the-trainer model, which equips the participants to later share the acquired expertise and concepts with others within their institutions. This will create a multiplier effect of developing “champions of entrepreneurship” within each university, who can continue to drive entrepreneurial initiatives beyond the Fulbright Specialist’s visit.
Universities will hereafter develop actionable implementation plans that outline how they will embed entrepreneurship into their academic and operational systems.
This is all achievable, Professor Miesing says
“Like in many countries and companies, entrepreneurship in South Africa presents opportunities and challenges,” said Professor Miesing (left). “While the growing interest in entrepreneurship, particularly among young people, is often a response to high unemployment, real barriers remain, such as high business failure rates and the lack of a fully developed ecosystem to support start-ups. But I see this as a glass half full; a blue ocean with open, uncontested space where your education system can play a transformative role by creating, and even reinventing, supporting programmes for entrepreneurs.”
Miesing commended the groundwork already laid by the EDHE Programme in embedding entrepreneurship within the higher education sector. “I applaud you for having done so much already. But as every entrepreneur knows, the flip side of every challenge is an opportunity. Together, we can build a sustainable strategy that aligns with what’s already in place and design something that supports your national priorities.”
Interactive learning in session at the first of the six-workshops series from 9 to 10 May, which assembled trainees from the four public universities in the Western Cape.
Dialogue, reflection and idea activation are the format
With all the extensive international experience that Professor Miesing brings as a global educator and researcher, he emphasised his role as a facilitator and not an expert with all the answers. “My role in these workshops is to capture the ideas already emerging within the system… I’m not here to teach in the traditional sense but to encourage open dialogue to prompt reflection, and to help translate ideas into action.”
He challenged the dinner delegates to consider the fundamental question of whether entrepreneurs are born or made. “If they’re born, then it’s about identifying and supporting the right individuals with curiosity, creativity, adaptability and the resilience to try again after failure. But if they’re made, the responsibility lies with us to design the right curriculum, offer the right experiences and build the kind of learning environments that nurture entrepreneurial thinking.”
Professor Miesing reflected on the shifts he has seen across the management field throughout the years, which have not quite filtered into the still traditional methods of teaching and learning. “For instance, personnel is now human resources. Business policy and planning is now strategic management. Computer science is now informatics and big data analytics, and small business management is now entrepreneurship.
“Similarly, the pedagogy that used to be the sage of the stage, like I’m doing now, has become the guide on the side, trying to create a learning environment that’s informative, inviting, inclusive and intellectually stimulating. That can be achieved if the method of teaching and learning is hands-on and experiential.”
He acknowledged that institutional structures don’t always reflect this change: “Even though pedagogy has evolved, bureaucracy hasn’t.
“That’s why these workshops are important. They’re a chance to ask difficult questions, share practical solutions and build systems to support innovation in a meaningful and sustainable way.”
The workshops, he explained, are intended to evolve as they progress through the six regions. “Each session will be informed by the lessons from the last. If we do this well, the final iteration will look very different from the first, and that’s a good thing. That’s how entrepreneurs work: test, iterate and improve.”
More on Professor Miesing
He is Professor Emeritus of Management at the University at Albany (SUNY Albany), where he taught strategic management in the MBA and PhD programmes for over 40 years. He is the founding director of the university’s Centre for the Advancement and Understanding of Social Enterprises (CAUSE), which launched the High Peaks Impact Awards to recognise businesses integrating environmental, social and governance principles into their strategy and operations.
Miesing is an award-winning researcher and has published extensively in leading academic and practitioner journals and co-edited volumes. His global footprint includes serving as a Fulbright Lecturer at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and a Fulbright Specialist at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile, South America, among other countries.
He remains active in research, mentorship and community engagement.
Nontobeko Mtshali is a contracted writer for Universities South Africa.
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