NMU shifts focus towards entrepreneurial curriculum
With unemployment on the rise in SA, the Nelson Mandela University plans to transform its curriculum and reposition the institution so it will become more entrepreneurial.
As one of the steps towards this goal, the university’s department of student governance and development held a dialogue with leaders in business education from various SA institutions and NMU students on Wednesday.
The dialogue explored ways NMU could transform its operations to allow for a more conducive environment for entrepreneurship.
It was led by panellists including Durban University of Technology social entrepreneurship director Dr Poppet Pillay, NMU business management lecturer and researcher Dr Riyaadh Lillah, Rhodes Business School associate professor Tshidi Mohapeloa and NMU Business School director Dr Randall Jonas.
Pillay said staff who aligned with the vision of out-of-thebox thinking were essential to achieving an entrepreneurial institution.
Though students’ actions played a pivotal role in shaping their future, Pillay advised that a closer look at the staff’s own thinking be taken.
“Staff themselves need to be geared towards dealing with this change.
“I know a lot of staff who have been teaching entrepreneurship who haven’t been entrepreneurs themselves and don’t even [possess entrepreneurial thinking].
“We need staff — whether in engineering or maths — to become involved in initiating thinking out of the box if we want entrepreneurial universities,” Pillay said.
Mohapeloa said it was time universities adopted an approach to higher learning that produced employers and not employees.
“Universities have been focused on dissemination of knowledge and research, and I think it’s about time we started looking at the reality that we have students who have to go out and search for employment from here — and there is not enough employment.
“How do we reposition ourselves for students to gain knowledge and experience while in an academic institution, but also with an outlook to becoming employers when they get out there?”
Student governance and development’s Karen Snyman said the department would present resolutions from the dialogue to the dean of students to be considered in the drive to inspire entrepreneurship on all campuses.
“This is just the beginning of the conversation towards creating a space for students to develop their mindsets,” she said.