‘Entrepreneurship is most effective response to youth unemployment’

Speaking at the 2026 annual Dr Sam Nzima Memorial lecture on 16 June 2026, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, reemphasised the University’s commitment to producing graduates who are ready to create jobs rather than looking for employment. With just six months into the implementation of the Tshwane University of Technology’s (TUT) new Institutional Strategic Plan 2026-2035 centred on entrepreneurship, Prof Maluleke’s remarks are as timely as they are on point.

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, says entrepreneurship is the crosscutting graduate attribute of the 21st century. As Youth Month draws to a close, entrepreneurship, Prof Maluleke said, is the most effective response to the unemployment crisis among youth in South Africa and across the continent. He added that, for TUT, entrepreneurship is the confluence of theory and praxis, where science embraces application and knowledge-making combines with policymaking.

“Entrepreneurship is that place where all academic subjects get together to dance the dance of life beyond the classroom. At TUT, entrepreneur is neither a noun nor an adjective; it is a verb and a way of being – we entrepreneur the future together. While others may regard entrepreneurship as an optional extra and a nice-to-have, for us, entrepreneurship is the crosscutting graduate attribute of the 21^st century,” said Prof Maluleke.

He said that while other institutions speak only of employability and producing graduates with the skills which the job market needs, TUT suggests that neither academia nor industry has what it takes to respond to the fast-changing 21st-century job market.

“The job market no longer knows what jobs it needs now, less so what jobs it will need in the next five to 10 years. That is why at TUT, we are seized with the notion of the future of work – a future we are not prepared merely to sit and wait for. We are partnering with industry at a pace and scale our peers have never seen before,” he said, adding that TUT not only equips students with fourth industrial revolution (4IR) skills, but it also teaches and trains AI.

“We are teaching AI the good values of resilience, excellence, diversity, accountability and stewardship; before others teach AI to lie, to cheat and to steal,” said Prof Maluleke. “It stands to reason, therefore, that at TUT are not mere adopters of AI, trained by others for ends that may not be aligned with our values and our mandate. TUT is in the AI backroom where algorithms are made; TUT is deep inside the AI factory, entrepreneurially shaping the digital future of the country and continent.

Prof Maluleke noted that the days are gone when professors determined and crafted curricula behind industry’s back, adding that the time has passed when industry waited for universities to single-handedly produce the perfect worker-graduate three to four years later.

“At TUT, we are bringing industry into the classroom, from first year to first job. That is how and why we are producing graduates who are ready to be unleashed as entrepreneurs, regardless of their academic discipline, graduates of impeccable ethical conduct,” he said.  – Corporate Affairs and Marketing