Emboldening the Voice of Youth in Entrepreneurship Education

Introduction

Entrepreneurship education is one of the areas of business management that has received much attention over the last few decades (Lackéus, 2015; Saptono, Wibowo, Widyastuti, Narmaditya, & Yanto, 2021). According to Petersen and Kruss (2021) and Li, Pervaiz, and He (2021), universities are viewed as agents of social change and are thus encouraged to spearhead this type of collaboration. Additionally, Jena (2020) argues that the development of entrepreneurial skills and programs has become a priority for higher education to enhance the employability of graduates who will be called upon to create jobs, not seek jobs.

Bux and van Vuuren (2019) assert that while it is widely accepted that entrepreneurship education plays a critical role in economic development, little is known about its application until the curriculum is completed. This chapter was written to ascertain the role of entrepreneurial education in developing student entrepreneurship and comprehending students' entrepreneurial intentions. Minai, Raza, bin Hashim, Zain, and Tariq (2018) and Dana, Tajpour, Salamzadeh, Hosseini, and Zolfaghari (2021) state that the importance of entrepreneurial education cannot be overstated. Entrepreneurial education is viewed as a means of re-creating welfare and establishing and maintaining alliances between the public and private sectors by fusing market dynamism with a public interest focus. Additionally, the authors note that entrepreneurship is viewed as a solution to the global crisis exacerbated by rising youth unemployment and a recipe for economic growth.

There is a need to increase the availability and promotion of entrepreneurial talent among students to foster the development of new enterprises that contribute to job creation and thus income generation in the local economy (Aggarwal, 2018; Radebe, 2019). University-based entrepreneurship studies are structured to identify and promote entrepreneurship, creativity, and abilities; and facilitate the development of autonomous behaviour that will help students better understand business start-ups and management skills (Man, 2019; Schiuma & Carlucci, 2018).

Scholars argue that entrepreneurship educators must consider what should be taught in entrepreneurship curricula: they must have a firm grasp on how an entrepreneur should operate (Lackéus, 2015). While enrolling students in entrepreneurship preparation, it is beneficial to identify who can become an entrepreneur through study and demonstrate that students are not adequately prepared to become entrepreneurs but instead enter the labour force as workers (Forcher-Mayr & Mahlknecht, 2020).

South Africa, as a developing country, faces numerous socioeconomic challenges, including high unemployment, inequality, and poverty. The official unemployment rate in South Africa increased by 0.5 percentage points from 34.4% in the second quarter of 2021 to 34.9% in the third quarter of 2021, reaching its highest level since the QLFS began in 2008. According to the extended definition of unemployment, the unemployment rate climbed by 2.2 percentage points to 46.6% in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the second quarter (Quarterly Labour Force Survey, 2021).