Study Of Social Entrepreneurship Should Be Mandatory

Professor Stella Nkomo, a Lecturer in Human Resource Management, University of Pretoria, SA, has called on Africa's leaders to make the study of Social Entrepreneurship a mandatory module for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

She explained that the curriculum would help manage the Continent's educational system to support Africapitalism, an economic philosophy embodying the private sector's commitment to the economic transformation of Africa.

Prof. Nkomo said Social Entrepreneurship was important because it provided a framework for businesses to find their own success in the pursuit of helping others.

She made the call in Accra at a lecture on the topic; 'Africapitalism Management Education in Africa: Propositions and Aspirations.'

Prof. Nkomo proposed a multi-disciplinary curriculum for Africa's educational system to give opportunities for students to learn a wide range of issues from other countries to be competitive in the market world.

'The module must also include a well-informed discussion of culture and identity in Africa rooted in the philosophy to recognise its heterogeneity and the negative side of ethnicity,' she said.

She expressed concern about the ways western ideas and knowledge dominated the curriculum and learning materials for nurturing Africa's managers and leaders, and said that must change.

Prof. Nkomo said Africapitalism offered an alternative corporate culture that allowed firms to strive for profit-making, but not for the exploitation of human beings because the ultimate goal of self-enrichment was to improve the community.

She said Africapitalism was underpinned by four cardinal values: sense of progress and prosperity, sense of parity, sense of peace and harmony, and sense of place and belongingness.

Prof. Nkomo explained that prosperity was more than the absence of poverty; it means 'addressing sustainable development and careful husbandry of the world's resources, while recognising the rights of developing countries to break out from poverty.'

She urged African leaders to understand the current global geopolitical context to be able to transform education on the Continent, since it played a pivotal role in the development of a country.