Vhonani Olive Netshandama, Ishmael Obaeko Iwara, Ndamulelo Innocent Nelwamondo
Social entrepreneurship has represented an important point of departure in socio-economic transformation. Institutions of Higher Learning, globally, are investing in the application of the concept because of its potential to facilitate involvement of students and staff in impactful lifelong learning and entrepreneurship development. This paper examines students’ knowledge about social entrepreneurship and the role that the university can play towards building a social entrepreneurial environment, drawing on the Transformative Learning Theory. A cross-sectional mixed-research design was followed. Using convenient and stratified simple random sampling techniques, 54 and 392 participants were drawn from the University of Venda for qualitative and quantitative data collection, respectively. Thematic analysis, descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation were exploited with the data. The result reveals that only a minority (32.7%) of students have comprehensive knowledge of social entrepreneurship, suggesting the need for robust engagements to bring many students on board. Three key roles which the University can play in promoting social entrepreneurship among students are suggested - scaling-up social entrepreneurship-related programmes on campus (83.7%), offering and infusion of social entrepreneurship compulsory module to all courses (77.6%), and introducing student social entrepreneurship internship programmes (73.5%). The creation of a social entrepreneurship development hub which integrates the three suggested components stands as a crucial recommendation from the study.