Application Deadline: April 12th 2019
Within the context of graduate and youth unemployment, the resources available at universities, the national drive for SMEs and the need for third-stream income at universities, the imperative to drive student and graduate entrepreneurship has been growing steadily. In response, a platform for Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) was established at the end of 2016 from within the University Education Branch of the Department Higher Education and Training. The EDHE Programme has since been included in the University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP) of the Department Higher Education and Training.
The goals of the EDHE Programme are:
- Student entrepreneurship, i.e. mobilising the national student and graduate resource to create successful enterprises that will ultimately lead to both wealth and job creation.
- Entrepreneurship development in academia, i.e. support academics in instilling an entrepreneurial mindset within all students and graduates through the offering of relevant knowledge, transferral of practical skills and the application of business principles, not only to a specific discipline, but across disciplines.
- Developing entrepreneurial universities, i.e. creating a conducive environment that will enable universities to adapt strategically and embark on projects whereby third-stream income can be generated through innovative business ideas.
The EDHE Programme is positioned to make entrepreneurship education and training accessible for all students across disciplines. This is a much-needed intervention that would better equip students to successfully participate in the economy upon graduation, regardless of whether they are employed or not.
The EDHE Programme, through driving entrepreneurship development in academia, is intended to optimise existing entrepreneurship research and encourage contextually relevant new research. This would include drawing together existing research on the broader topic of entrepreneurship development, but also specifically on the topic of entrepreneurial universities. Entrepreneurship research would be made available to university stakeholders, students and other stakeholders through a centralised online repository of information.
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