The potential of ubuntu in shaping an African perspective of entrepreneurial education

Abstract

This study explores how a Botho/Ubuntu-oriented pedagogy of entrepreneurial education in the school curriculum can be realised while navigating the dialectical tensions between neoliberalism and Botho/Ubuntu philosophy in education and the economic development agenda of Botswana. It takes as a point of departure the assumptions that the pursuit of national development under the influence of globalisation requires a give-and-take interaction between the local and global influences wherein local programs take the shape of local needs and values while simultaneously incorporating international influences (DeJaghere, 2017; Tabulawa 2023). Therefore, this study uses a Hegelian dialectical methodology to explore the dialectical tensions between neoliberal entrepreneurialism and Botho/Ubuntu in an attempt to develop a Botho/Ubuntu-oriented perspective of entrepreneurial education. The findings reveal that even though entrepreneurship education seems not to be receiving sufficient critique, a syncretism may be forged between Botho/Ubuntu and entrepreneurship in practice and in education.